Satan’s Test of Job and the Start of Job’s Response

This meditation is based on a passage for August 20, 2010 in the Daily Lectionary Year 2 from the Book of Common Worship for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (1993).

Text: Job 2:1-13

Reflection and Question: We enter this amazing Wisdom story of Job at the point where Satan has already tested Job, the righteous one, by destroying his great wealth and all his children, but still failed to provoke Job to curse God. For a second time Satan and God discuss Job’s integrity. When Satan claims that attacking Job’s body will prompt the curse, God permits Satan to try, short of taking Job’s life. In terrible pain, goaded by his wife to curse God, Job is silent. And his friends have their best moment when they simply sit for days in silence with the sufferer. Where do you see yourself reflected in this story?

Prayer: God above all gods, do not put us to the test. But when the trials of Job come, find us as faithful as this good man. We remember as Job does — naked we came into this world, naked we leave. In good and in bad we bless Your holy name. Amen.