Wisdom in the Mines

Dear friends,

There, smack dab in the middle of the book of Job, is a lesson on mining.  When I think of mines, my imagination wanders to dirty men with flashlights on their helmets, and gut wrenching stories of tunnel collapses, and long, dark mazes deep underground where human beings really don’t belong.  I wonder what mining was like in Job’s day, before Herculean power earth movers and OSHA regulations.  Job scrapes his boils, sick and tired of his friends’ lectures, probably sick and tired of his own complaining, and takes a side trip to the deep dark places, a metaphor for his life.

The book of Job has become strangely comforting to me.  It was not long ago at all that I got an acidy feeling in my stomach when I saw it coming on my Navigator’s bible reading plan.  Each day I would open to the chapter and verse, and brace myself to enter into another man’s profound suffering.  But somehow over these weeks I have come to love this book.  I think it’s because I see so much of myself in Job…not in any way to compare my suffering to his, but finding kinship in my response to suffering.

One moment, Job is railing, complaining, accusing.  The next he says “I know that my redeemer lives.”  One moment he decries his whole life, the next he says “though He slay me, yet I will trust him.”  But of all the chapters that have moved me in this book so far, Job 28 tops them all.

The sorry soul takes a break to ponder the depths of a mine, and the unique place of the miner cutting through earth, trolling through darkness, and finding treasures impossible to unearth in the light.  He makes a hard turn in verse 20, when he asks: “Where then, does wisdom come from?  Where does understanding dwell.”  Sorely tested, Job desperately wants understanding.  He sees, even through unimaginable pain, that:

“It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
   concealed even from the birds in the sky.
²² Destruction^[b] and Death say,
   “Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.”
²³ God understands the way to it
   and he alone knows where it dwells,
²⁴ for he views the ends of the earth
   and sees everything under the heavens.
²⁵ When he established the force of the wind
   and measured out the waters,
²⁶ when he made a decree for the rain
   and a path for the thunderstorm,
²⁷ then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
   he confirmed it and tested it.
²⁸ And he said to the human race,
   “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
   and to shun evil is understanding.”

God alone owns the mines of wisdom and understanding.  There are things in this mortal veil we’ll never, ever figure out.  But the book of James holds out this promise:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

I need wisdom for my every day.  And I am filled with gratitude that He gives it generously, and especially without finding fault.  I continue to try to find my way through a dark mine, with countless dead ends and wrong turns.  By His grace, I can cry out for understanding and direction in a world gone mad, and in an astonishing act of mercy, He takes me around the next bend.  I am still alive.  I still love God.  I am His and He is mine.

And I believe, with tears, that there’s gold in them there hills.  Down deep, there are treasures in the darkness. Faith.  Hope.  Dare I say, JOY.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann