Job CCXXV

 Job 21:1-3, “Then Job answered and said: “Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your consolation. Bear with me that I may speak, and after I have spoken, keep mocking.’”

Some people are talkers, others are listeners, and a handful know how to balance the two and speak when they ought, listen when they should, and do it in such a way as to make the other person feel as though they weren’t speaking to a brick wall, or listening to a monologue rather than having a dialogue.

When someone has a tendency to ramble, I let them. If they like the sound of their own voice so much, why should I be the one to yuck their yum? It happens on occasion when someone asks to interview me, and for thirty minutes or an hour, depending on the length of the program, I hear my life story read back to me, and other than thanking the individual for having me on their program, I could barely get a word in edgeways. I’m glad they did their research, or at least know how to use the interwebs well enough to pull up my bio, but if I made the time to block out an hour of my life to focus solely on having a conversation, it would be nice to actually have one.

Some of the most brilliant interviewers of our day have mastered one skill: listening. Especially when it comes to long-form interviews, it’s not the ones that like to flex their vocabulary muscles, those who want to prove how smart they are, or those that like to hear the sound of their own voice that stand out, but those that ask a simple question, and wait for the answer, allowing for the interviewee to make their point without interruption.

Once they’ve made their point, if the need arises, there are follow-up questions, requests for clarification, or the fleshing out of an idea, but for the most part, the interviewer listens.

Conversely, some of the most insufferable individuals roaming about today are those who act as though the person they’re trying to have a dialogue with isn’t even there, because they need to make their point, they need to be right, and they deem the person before them to be beneath them, whether socially or intellectually.

Job knew his friends would likely bristle at what he had to say and would feel compelled to interrupt, challenge, or otherwise verbally try to steamroll over him, so he made it clear that it would be greatly appreciated if they’d let him get his point across, and once that was done, they could return to their previously scheduled program of mocking him. It wasn’t that he held out hope of convincing them. That ship had already sailed, and he knew their mockery would return anew once he was done speaking, but sometimes things must be said for posterity if nothing else.

Even though Job knew the three men who had been accusing him would not change course, and that they would continue down the path of accusation, insinuation, and mockery, he likewise knew he could not keep silent. Even at the risk of having his words seen as cynical, serving to solidify their preconceptions, because an innocent person wouldn’t get so defensive about such things, Job knew he must answer.

One of the most off-putting things you can witness is when an accuser starts playing the victim in order to save face. They can’t prove that the individual they’ve accused has done anything untoward; there is no evidence to substantiate their claim. Yet they keep at it until the person speaks up, and suddenly they feel victimized for being called out. It’s a defense mechanism, a way of saving face without having to concede to the fact that there was nothing substantive in the words you spoke against them.

Some people project guilt on others simply because they’ve concluded that the individual they are attempting to sully needs to come down a peg or two. Taking the words of Job’s friends in the aggregate and at face value, one can’t help but wonder if they’d harbored some resentment against him, and now was the perfect opportunity to let it all out.

The greatest of all the people of the East, huh? How did that turn out for you?

Everyone has someone in their life who will gleefully celebrate their demise. It’s sad, it’s tragic, but it’s also true. What’s worse is that sometimes the individual in question is so unexpected as to blindside you, and now, rather than dealing with one heartache, heartbreak, loss, or tragedy, you’re dealing with two because someone you thought was a friend is holding a bloody knife, grinning maliciously, and waiting for you to expire.

My words may not sway you, you may not alter your course, you will likely think worse of me by the time I’m done, but I need to speak them nonetheless. If ever you were my friends, if ever you cared for me, show me this mercy, extend this grace, bear with me that I may speak, and when I am done, do as you will.

It would not require an overactive imagination to conclude that this seemed like the last wish of a dying man. Given that conjecture was the bread and butter of Job’s three friends, by this point, I doubt any of them held out hope of his being restored. In their minds, Job was getting what he deserved because if he wasn’t guilty of everything they’d presumed him to be guilty of, why would God have allowed him to fall so far so quickly?

Between their confirmation biases, feedback loops agreeing with each other, and the undeniable wretched condition Job was in, there was no other plausible explanation that Job’s three friends would entertain, and he saw the reality of it plainly written on their faces. He was no longer asking that they believe him, just that they bite their tongues long enough for him to say what he needed to say.      

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.