"When Job says he repents, he does not mean the friends have been right all along, that Job has secret sins and finally has to admit them and repent. He maintains his integrity at the end as he has all along. But he realizes he has been presumptuous: he has spoken of things he does not understand and has overreached himself (42: 3). Now in the presence of the living God he bows down in silent worship. And that is a good thing! For Job to be brought low so that he despises himself and exalts God is not a bad thing.
We understand that for us to go around thinking we are worms in relation to our fellow human beings is a destructive thing. That kind of inferiority complex, pathological low self-esteem, is not to be encouraged....But in the presence of the living God, to bow down low and to grasp how great he is and how small I am is a healthy thing— because it is true. It is a mark of the love of God that he brings Job low, for this is where a creature ought to be.
That is true for us as well. We often pray for success, both for us and for others; we pray for good exam results, for good job offers, etc. And yet so often success leads to pride, and pride to self-confidence, and self-confidence to independence from God, and independence from God leads to Hell. The most deeply compassionate and merciful thing God can do is to humble us and bring us low so that we bow before him and lean on him and trust him. That is the first mark of the compassion of God: he loves enough to humble us, as he humbled Job, under his mighty hand. Perhaps for some of us there has been, or there will be, a time in life when everything goes wrong. A time perhaps of pain and failure, even of disaster and misery. And it may be that God in his compassion is bringing us low so that we will lean on him alone. This was for Job a hard truth, but it was nonetheless a mark of the mercy of God that he would bring Job very low."
Ash, Christopher. Job: The Wisdom of the Cross
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