In 1981 Dr. Donna Wong began working as a child life specialist at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her job was to help children and parents cope with illness or injury. Play therapy helped children talk about their anxiety, but when they were in pain they didn’t want to play. Their pain needed to be addressed before they could deal with other problems.

Dr. Wong noticed that children couldn’t communicate the level of their pain very well and when they tried they often were not believed. She began to work with her pediatric patients to create a “face scale” they could point to to show caregivers what they were feeling.

They drew a row of facial expressions to illustrate the spectrum of pain. The drawing on the far left had a big smile indicating “no pain”, and the face on the far right had a big frown and tears indicating the worst pain. Children could point to the face along the spectrum that matched their level of discomfort. This simple scale is used all over the world now to help people tell others about their suffering.

Pain is invisible, and so personal that outside observers can’t really understand it. The only way to assist a person with pain is to ask them about it and believe what they say.

Job Describes His Pain

Job had trouble communicating his pain to his friends. They came to comfort him, but they made things worse because they just didn’t believe what he said about his suffering. He kept telling them that God had made this happen for some mysterious reason known only to God, but his friends insisted Job was suffering because he was an evil man.

I counted sixteen different ways that Job described his situation in Job 19:7-20. His pain scale was off the charts, but he knew his friends didn’t believe him because they still blamed him for his suffering. Their quick solution was for Job to repent – of sins he knew he hadn’t committed.

Job Warns His Friends

If they really believed sin was the cause of all suffering, Job had a warning for them because they too were sinful men.

“If you say, ‘How will we hound him, since the root of the trouble is in him,’ you should fear for the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword and then you will know that there is judgment.” Job 19:28-29

Zophar Adds Nothing to the Conversation

Zophar, who was the next to speak, was insulted by this statement from Job. Since he hadn’t suffered any losses and he was in good health he concluded that he must be sinless, and that it was disrespectful for Job to imply he was a sinful person.

Zophar didn’t have anything new to add to the conversation, so he launched into another long diatribe about the consequences of sin, hoping Job saw himself in those consequences. Job’s thoughtful suggestion that his friends consider whether they, too, were sinful people paled next to Zophar’s vitriol against Job. Like Bildad, Zophar wished Job would be wiped from the face of the earth.

Job Sees Jesus

God was listening to all of this. He understood Job’s pain and he sent some relief in Job 19:23-27 by giving Job a vision of how this would all end in glory someday.

 “Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever! I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

 Without knowing to whom he was referring, Job described Jesus. In Job 16:18-21 Job saw Jesus as his witness, advocate and intercessor, now he called him redeemer, too.

Job had a pre-incarnate sighting of Jesus. He saw Jesus alive before he came to earth as a newborn baby, and he also saw Jesus at the end of time, standing on the earth. Jesus was revealed to Job as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

A Glimpse of the Resurrection

Job’s suffering body, reduced to skin and bones, was soon to perish, but Job saw that someday his flesh would be restored and he would see God. This restored body would have eyes so he could look at God. He wouldn’t have to rely on what someone else saw, he would be a first-hand witness.

Job saw the resurrection promised to all who believe in Jesus and he was filled with yearning for the vision to be fulfilled. God still gives visions of Jesus to people today and it always has the same effect, it makes people want to have a relationship with Jesus.

This vision from God strengthened Job. If his friends had listened to Job seriously they, too, could have learned some new things about God.

Job Addresses a Paradox

Job addressed a paradox in chapter 21. He challenged the assumption that all suffering comes from sin by asking why some wicked people don’t suffer. What about people who were unjust and evil who lived to an old age and died peacefully?

“Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’” Job 21:14-15

Who could explain God’s apparent blessings for people who hate him? Sin did create a mess, but sometimes it took a while for it to show up.  Job noted that the consequences of an evil person’s life sometimes fell upon their children.

“For what do they care for the families they leave behind when their allotted months come to an end?” Job 21:21

Can Anyone Teach God?

Job summed up the paradox by saying,

“Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest? One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease . . . Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good. Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.” Job 21:22-26

Job wrestled with the mystery of why some people had sweet lives and others didn’t. He knew it wasn’t a simple matter of whether people sinned or not. What was it that dictated the courses of their lives?

Only God knew.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/muslims-dream-jesus/

https://wongbakerfaces.org/us/wong-baker-faces-history/