Job asks, “Where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12). Not in commerce, represented by mining and smelting metals (28:1-4) or seeking expensive jewels (28:16-19). It is not in nature, represented by birds and beasts of prey (28:7-8), nor in the depths of the sea (28:14) nor in life and death (28:13, 22).

Humans are industrious workers, good at digging canals and exploring rivers (28:9-11), but they do not know the way to intelligence and wisdom (28:12-13). Only God has true understanding (28:23). And therefore it is only in relationship to God that humans can hope to find wisdom (28:28).

Yet when Job analyzes his relationship with God, he laments: “With violence he seizes my garment; he grasps me by the collar of my tunic. He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes” (30:18-19) – in other words, when the Almighty decides to do something, humans become nothing more than specks of dust blown around in whatever direction God may decide.

Many people would agree with Job about this: compared to the immensity of God’s grandeur, humans are nothing more than dust and ashes. But although this “we are just dust and ashes” doctrine may seem right to our intuition – and although we can certainly reckon that Job has strong reasons to believe it – by the time we get to the end of the book we will find out that it is mistaken.

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We seek wisdom, Lord: but we look for the meaning of life where it cannot be found, and then we complain that you don’t give us what we need as we look for it in those wrong places. What we truly need is you, O God. Teach us to accept no substitutes, and to know we can find our life only in you.