Job

Julie and I have been reading through the Bible in 90 days. We're about a week off the half way point. This started as a challenge my dad passed out to all of us kids. He had heard it from one of our supporting churches in the States. I think they are using a specific program, but we just picked up the challenge and figured out how much we needed to read each day and started. I invited Julie to join me because I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it if I was doing it by myself. We sit down every morning and read our section together, out loud, switching off every couple of chapters. It keeps us both focused (usually) and if we have a comment or question we can just interrupt and ask. It's been very interesting. It takes about 1 1/2 hours every day. For me, it has opened up new thoughts as I see Julie's perspective on things and just how different things fit together. When you are reading in large chunks it is easier to grasp the whole story and to see how God was working or how things fit in history.
We're at Job today. We started today and will finish tomorrow. Job has always been one of my favorite books. I haven't always understood it well, but the emotions resonate with me. I can appreciate Job's depression and his railing against God creating him. It is interesting that his friends were condemned by God and Job was upheld. Job's friends start out saying that if Job is truly righteous these things will pass and God will not let it go on forever; God will bring Job about. Job is not comforted. Then the friends say that since God has brought these things on him, Job must be at fault. Job responds that if he was sitting in their place and they in his it would be easy for him to say silly things like that, but that he wouldn't, he would comfort them instead. But he is not comforted by them. Instead he acknowledges God's greatness, questions why God created him if His only plan was torture him and then goes into a "the wicked prosper despite their wickedness" rant.
I know many people who think that emotion is wrong. Well, not emotion, but "too much" emotion. One must control oneself. If you feel things "too" much or express what you are feeling...horrors! You are just not quite as spiritual as they. You just need to get some self-control. It is hard to argue with these people because well, one of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. But God commends Job as a righteous man, and says that he didn't sin in all these things; then has him offer an offering for his friend's guilt. And David was a man after God's own heart, but if you look at the Psalms and even read through his life, he was pretty much an emotional wreck! I mean, he got so depressed about Absalom that he made his whole army ashamed. And he also was the one who got so excited that he danced before God with all his might. These are strong emotional outpourings. Perhaps not all of them are right, but the Psalms are full of emotional outpourings, they are not "self-controlled" artistic poetry for the praise and worship of God in a restrained sort of way. They cry out to God and rail and weep and mourn and laugh and rejoice (sometimes at rather unpleasant things it seems--like the babies of their enemies being dashed against the rocks). Not all of it is centered around God. God is always there. But Job and the Psalms present so much the human view. And God upholds this and finds this so important that the Psalms are the biggest book in the Bible. And God actually interacts with Job and condemns his more "level-headed" friends.
No, I'm not advocating a complete loss of self-control or that we should toss everything to the wind and burst into tears at the least provocation. Job had suffered greatly, but instead of sympathizing his friends tried to "fix" the problem by pointing out areas where Job might be wrong or guilty of sin and thus be the cause of all this persecution. I do know a number of people who would have been a lot better off for some kindness and loving sympathy instead of the judgment they received. I also know people who just need a "kick in the pants". But overall, I think the church, especially in the West needs to learn that it can be not only appropriate, but GOOD to express honestly our emotions before God; rather than trying to hide behind a curtain of self-righteous self-control.
Thoughts?