October 26, 2025 Anchored in Patience Job 1:13-22 Job 42:1-6
Anchored in Patience
Job 1:13-22 & Job 42:1-6
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
October 26, 2025
One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, another came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.” Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
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Then Job answered the Lord: “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me that I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
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To prepare for this “Anchored” sermon series, I planned all the topics out ahead of time. I certainly don’t know exactly what I’ll say when I pick a topic weeks or even months out, but I trust that God will give me something useful or insightful to share. So for today’s sermon topic, I chose “Anchored in Patience.” When it came time to sit down and write today’s sermon, I decided that I am wholly unqualified to preach on this topic, because the day they were handing out patience, I left because it was taking too long.
So I stand before you in shared common humanity, offering my best shot at a topic I have a lot of room in which to grow!
With that, perhaps the man best known for patience in the Bible and possibly the entire western world can help us out.
His name was Job, best known for “the patience of Job.” Job was someone obviously anchored in patience, and it’s a good thing, considering what life brought Job’s way.
So let me tell you about Job. The book that bears his name opens with this description: “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”
Job had it all. Seven sons, three daughters. Seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and a whole lot of servants. The text says he was “the greatest of all the people of the east.” Successful. Wealthy. Respected. Faithful.
And then, in one day, everything came crashing down.
The text tells us there was this conversation happening in the spiritual realm—God and Satan were talking about Job. God pointed to Job as an example of faithfulness. Satan basically said, “Well, sure he’s faithful—look at everything you’ve given him! Take it all away and he’ll curse you to your face.”
(Let me pause and say here . . . some people read this text literally and see Job as an historical figure. . . a good many scholars suggest that this story is holy allegory. Take your pick!)
So God allowed Satan to test Job. And what happened next is almost unbearable to read.
In chapter 1, verses 13-19, we see a cascade of catastrophes. Four messengers arrive, one after another, each bringing worse news than the last.
First messenger: “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They killed the servants with the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.”
Second messenger, while the first is still speaking: “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants. I alone have escaped to tell you.”
Third messenger, while the second is still speaking: “The Chaldeans formed three columns, seized the camels, and killed the servants. I alone have escaped to tell you.”
And then the fourth messenger—and this is where it becomes almost too much: “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead.”
All ten children. Gone. In an instant.
All his wealth. Gone.
All his servants. Dead.
Everything—absolutely everything—stripped away in a matter of hours.
Can you imagine? You wake up in the morning with ten children and go to bed that night having buried them all. You start the day as a successful business owner and end it with nothing. No warning. No explanation. Just devastation.
And here’s what Job did. Verse 20: “Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped.”
Worshiped. In the midst of unspeakable grief, Job worshiped.
And then he said these remarkable words: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The text adds: “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.”
But the story doesn’t end there. Satan comes back and says, “Okay, he didn’t curse you when he lost his stuff and his kids, but touch his body and he’ll curse you for sure.” So God allows Satan to afflict Job with painful sores from head to toe.
Job’s wife, who has also lost everything—her children, her wealth, her life as she knew it—looks at her suffering husband and says, “Curse God and die.” She’s done. She can’t take anymore.
But Job responds, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
Then three friends show up. At first, they do the right thing—they sit with him in silence for seven days. But then they start talking, and for most of the book, they try to convince Job that he must have done something to deserve this suffering. “You must have sinned, Job. God doesn’t punish the innocent. Confess what you did wrong.”
But Job knows he didn’t do anything to deserve this. And so he wrestles. He questions. He cries out to God. He demands an audience with the Almighty. He wants answers. He wants to know WHY.
For thirty-seven chapters, we get Job’s pain, his friends’ terrible advice, his questions, his anger, his confusion, his grief.
And then, in chapter 38, God shows up. Not with answers, but with questions. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” For four chapters, God takes Job on a tour of creation—the seas, the stars, the wild animals, the weather patterns. God essentially says, “Job, there is so much you don’t understand about how the universe works. Can you trust that I know what I’m doing even when you can’t understand it?”
And here’s Job’s response in chapter 42, verses 1-6. After all the loss, all the pain, all the questions, all the wrestling, Job says:
I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ’Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me that I did not know. 4 ’Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.
Job doesn’t get explanations. He doesn’t get reasons why his children died or why he lost everything. What Job gets is an encounter with God. And somehow, that’s enough.
The story ends with restoration—God gives Job twice as much as he had before, and he has ten more children. But notice: God doesn’t bring back the first ten children. The loss remains. The grief remains. Life moves forward, but it’s never the same.
This is Job’s story. This is what we mean by “the patience of Job”—not that he was calm and serene through it all. He wasn’t. He raged. He questioned. He wept. He demanded answers.
AND . . . he held on. He didn’t let go of God, even when he couldn’t understand God. He stayed anchored when everything else was torn away.
SO WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM JOB ABOUT BEING ANCHORED IN PATIENCE?
The first thing we can learn from Job about patience is that patience doesn’t mean silence.
Let me share a poem by Carl Dennis called “Job’s Complaint”:
Let Job complain
About his treatment as long as he wants to,
For months, for decades,
And in this way secure his place forever
In the hearts of all who believe
That suffering shouldn’t be silent,
That grievances ought to be aired completely,
Whether heard or not.
This poem reveals to us that maybe we’ve misunderstood “the patience of Job.” The fact of the matter is that Job complained for 35 chapters! He raged. He questioned. He demanded answers. And you know what? God did not rebuke him for his rage, his anger, his complaints.
Job teaches us that there is a place in the Christian life for genuine lament, for honest questions, even for our anger at God. We see through Job that God is big enough to handle all of it.
Friends, we don’t have to pretend we’re okay when we’re not. God can handle our honest emotions—all of it.
The second thing we can learn from Job is that patience is holding on even when we don’t understand.
Think about it. Job never got his “why” answered. Never. Job never learned the reason for his suffering. Never.
What Job did get was far better than an explanation. Job got an encounter with the Almighty. Listen again to what Job said near the end of the book (42:5):
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”
Before all this happened to Job, he had a kind of “secondhand” faith—a faith in which he had merely heard about God. But by the end of the story, Job had a “firsthand” encounter—an encounter in which he truly saw God.
Patience anchored in God doesn’t require that we understand everything—in fact we may never know the “why” behind so much human suffering. Instead, patience anchored in God requires us to hold onto the promise that while God may not give us the answers we seek, God is with us through it all, whether or not we ever understand the “why.” “Lo, I am with you, to the very end of the age,” Christ promises after the resurrection (Matt. 28:20). And maybe that’s exactly what we need: not answers, but Presence.
The third thing we can learn from Job is that patience trust’s God’s character, not our circumstances.
Think about Job’s circumstances. Everything about his life screamed that God had abandoned him. But Job held to what he knew of God’s character, saying things like: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (13:15).
When we anchor ourselves to outcomes, we’re sure to be disappointed. But when we anchor our lives to God’s unchanging character, we can weather whatever storms life may bring.
So let’s bring these lessons from Job into our VUCA world—our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world—a world marked by ongoing polycrisis. What can we take away from Job’s story to apply to the challenging days in which we live? Are there ways we can anchor ourselves in patience?
The first practice is to take time for lament.
Our culture dismisses the need for grief and honest questioning. “Just get over it” they say. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” “Put your game face on.” “Chin up.” Christians sometimes think they aren’t being faithful when we doubt or get angry at God. Friends, don’t spiritualize your grief. Don’t try to make holy lemonade when life gives you lemons from hell. Do this instead: tell God exactly how you feel. God is big enough to handle your rage, your questions, all of it. This is an act of faith, not doubt.
The second practice is to wait actively, not passively.
Patience isn’t resignation. Job continued to seek God, to wrestle, to engage. There’s a difference between standing still and lying in wait. So in your waiting, keep showing up. Keep doing the work. Don’t check out, rather feel everything, even the things you don’t want to feel. Commit yourself to be in community with others in this shared common humanity that spares no one suffering. In this we actively wait the unfolding kingdom of God.
The third practice is to remember.
Remember what you know of God even when you can’t see. Job called on what he knew of God’s character when everything was taken from him. So when the present circumstances confuse you, hold onto what you know about God’s character. Read the Bible to remember God’s nature. Sing those hymns of faith that help you recall God’s love and care. And once you remember, help others remember as well. Great is God’s faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies we see!
Lament. Participate. Remember. In these ways we will find ourselves “Anchored in Patience.”
I want to close with words from Max Ehrmann’s poem “Desiderata,” written in 1927:
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.