Job
13
Let’s see if we can tease out some lessons for life from this incredible document, the book of Job. Whatever happened to Job, happened because God is good, never because God is not good. It happened because God was working out something ultimately beneficial in Job’s life, not because God wanted to teach him a lesson.
We need to recognise how God’s permissive will may move in our lives as believers. He can use cancer – though you want rid of it – bereavement (though you wish it hadn’t happened) – redundancy, broken engagements, a messy divorce, even deportation to serve His greater glory. With hindsight – but only with hindsight – we can see the purpose in it and lessons are learned. It’s most important not to let circumstances get between you and God.
When our world collapses, perhaps we’re all prone, like Job, to become self-absorbed. Job is wrapped up in himself and becomes hard, hard as nails at times. Suffering can bring out the worst in us as well as, possibly, the best in us. Under the crushing weight of his enormous sufferings, Job’s spiritual egotism came to light: his hidden inner life of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness surfaced.
There’s a verse in Isaiah chapter 50 that spells out very clearly what Job was trying to do. It’s verse 10, “Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”
The book of Job teaches me there really is a devil who is utterly vicious in his intentions. Satan is clearly not a free agent. God will only allow him enough rope with which to hang himself. God did not lose His divine wager with Satan.
When I’m tempted to think God is unjust in the way He’s treating me – surely I deserve something better – I realize, because of my pride and sin, I deserve worse and it is only of His mercies that we are not consumed.
Chuck Swindoll reckons that the core message of Job is contained in chapter 42 verse 3 where Job says to God, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” Chuck Swindoll says Job’s story is about coming to the realization that God’s plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. We have to live with mystery and unanswered questions and trust God knows what He’s doing. Justice long delayed annoys us but that’s the way it is. All God’s accounts are not settled at the end of the month. What bothers us is that God doesn’t act like we think He ought to act.
The account of Job is the story of a man whose life and family were struck by a thunderbolt. His mind swirled with disbelief; he lost his bearings and couldn’t think straight. Who in their right mind would dare to go to court with an opponent powerful enough to shake the earth, make the stars and walk on water?
Maybe you are in the prison of circumstances that leave you crushed and hopeless. Listen, believer, He’s not lost the plot. He loves you and will perfect that which concerns you. He’s still on your case. He knows why it’s happening. He’s too wise to make a mistake. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Confess your disappointment to God. If you feel He’s let you down, say so. He knows how you feel anyway. The Bible never belittles human disappointment. Look at the proportions in Job – one chapter of restoration after 41 chapters of anguish and grief.
Philip Yancey, with great insight, writes, “Job stands as merely the most extreme example of what appears to be a universal law of faith. The kind of faith God values seems to develop best when everything fuzzes over, when God stays silent and the fog rolls in.” Job emerged as a survivor who waited for the fog to lift. Remember working through is always more costly than walking out.
Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, and even acceptance with joy. Job never mentions Satan, much less gives him credit for what happened. As St. Augustine wrote, “Job did not say ‘The Lord gave and the devil has taken away.’” Job’s bottom line was to trust God in the darkest night, even when it didn’t make sense.
Do we believe that nothing is going on without God’s awareness and throughout the fiery ordeal, we’re being reshaped in the whole purifying and humbling, refining process? How important it is to remember in the darkness what we have learned in the light. Pain can be positive rather than purposeless, when it is handed over to God. In our hands pain is a problem – in God’s hands it is a possibility.
The Danish theologian, Søren Kierkegaard made the insightful statement, “The secret in Job, the vital force, the nerve, the idea is that Job, despite everything, is in the right.” At the end of the book, God criticizes Job for only thing – his limited point of view. Philip Yancey argues that at the root, Job faced a crisis of faith, not of suffering. God re-focused the central issue from the cause of Job’s suffering to his response. Looking backward – but only looking backward – we can see the advantage Job gained by continuing to trust God. Believer, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs chapter 3 verses 5-6)