Job experiences the dark night of the soul big time, as God is allowing suffering to make him a saint.
Job's realization of who he is in the Eyes of God is one of the first steps in the stage of self-denial. If we see ourselves as foolish, untrusty servants, then we are on the way to humility. Look at this beautiful section from Aquinas, and note that separation from all the things of this earth create a love for God, which is caused by one clinging to him.
God must break through our pride and natural life in order to get us to the supernatural. If we stay in the natural, nothing will happen in our spirit. Natural merit means nothing in the supernatural order.
Recently, I discovered that my so-called work for the Lord which I thought I was doing all these years means absolutely nothing to God. It is all about being, not doing. Job is learning to be perfect.....
The fact that worldly men are designated by “earth” is shown clearly enough by the fact that the Lord seems to separate Job from the earth, although he is living on earth. For when Satan had said, “I have prowled about the earth and I have run through it,” the text adds, “And the Lord said to him: Have you considered my servant Job, there is none like him on the earth?” For it would seem groundless to ask whether he who asserted he had prowled about and run through the earth had considered Job, unless he understood Job his servant to be outside the earth. God clearly shows in what respect Job is separated from the earth saying, “my servant Job.” Man has been created as it were like a mean between God and earthly things, for with the mind he clings to God but with the flesh he is joined to earthly things. Besides, as every mean recedes more from one extreme the closer it approaches to the other one. So, the more man clings to God, the more removed he is from earth. To be a servant of God means to cling to God with the mind, for it is characteristic of a servant to not be his own cause. The one who clings to God in his mind, orders himself to God as a servant of love and not of fear.
Note that earthly affections in some remote sense imitate spiritual affections by which the mind is joined to God, but they can in no way complete their similarity. This is because earthly love and consequently all affection falls short of the love of God, because love is the principle of every affection. So after God fittingly said, “Have you considered my servant Job,” he continues, “there is none like him on earth,” because nothing among earthly things can equal spiritual things. However, this passage can be understood also in another way, for in each saint, there is some preeminent virtue for some special use. This is why the we sing in Church for each one of the Confessors that, “There is found none like him who kept the law of the Most High,” except for Christ because everything existed in him in the most perfect and excellent way. In this way the text can be understood to mean that no one of those living on earth was like Job in that he excelled in some special use of virtue. In the next verse, the text shows in what Job was a servant of God and that there was no one like him on earth when it adds, “He is a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”, which will not be dealt with here because it has been already commented on.
Consider that God not only orders the lives of the just for their own good, but he represents it for others to see. Still those who see this example are not all influenced by it in the same way. For the good who consider the life of the just as an example profit from the experience; whereas the wicked, if they are not corrected so that they become good by his example, revolt against the life of the just which they have observed, either when they are either tortured by envy or they try to ruin that life with false judgments, as the Apostle Paul shows in 2 Cor., “For we are the good odor of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one the stench of death to death; to the other the smell of life to life.” (2:15) Thus God wants the life of the saints to be considered not only by the elect for the progress of their salvation, but also by the iniquitous for the increase of their damnation, for from the life of the saints the perversity of the impious is shown to be blameworthy as Wisdom says, “The just man who has died condemns the impious who are alive.” (4:16) Therefore the Lord says to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, etc.”, as if to say: You prowl about and run through the earth, but you can consider by servant Job and wonder at his virtue.
Those who are in sin cannot understand those of us pursuing the life of holiness. We are fools on earth. So be it. Rather a fool for Christ than one who denies God.
Perverse men, whose prince is Satan who here acts in their place, usually accuse holy men unjustly of not acting for a right intention because they cannot find fault with the life of the saints. Scripture expresses this saying, “Turning good to evil, he lies in ambush and he will put the blame on the elect.” (Sir. 11:33) This appears in what follows in the text, “Then Satan answered the Lord: Does Job fear God in vain?” as if to say: I cannot deny that he does good things, but he does not do them for a right intention because of love of you and the good for its own sake. Rather he does them because of the temporal goods which he has attained from you. So he says, “Does Job fear God in vain?” for we are said to do something in vain when we cannot hope to attain what we intend. Job serves you because of the temporal goods he has gained from you, so it is not in vain that he fears you in serving you.
