Job CXXIV

 Job 10: 1-7, “My soul loathes my life; I will give free course to my complaint, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; show me why You contend with me. Does it seem good to You that You should oppress, that You should despise the work of Your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked? Do You have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees? Are Your days like the days of a mortal man? Are Your ears like the days of a mighty man, that You should seek for my iniquity and search out my sin, although You know that I am not wicked, and there is no one who can deliver from Your hand?”’

Job knew that something wasn’t adding up; he just didn’t know what it was. He knew the nature of the God he served to the extent that what had befallen him didn’t make sense, and once again, he was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, even though some of the most important pieces were missing.

Yes, sometimes testing and sifting can seem like punishment. Especially in Job’s case, wherein he was not aware of all that had gone on between God and Satan, it was the only conclusion he could come to, even though it seemed incongruent with God’s justice and righteous judgment.

By this point, Job’s only desire was to understand why he was enduring these torments. He’d gone beyond asking for death to asking God to show him why He contended with him.

Everyone’s gone through something similar, and if not, at some point in life, you will. Someone you know, perhaps someone you trust, does something so wholly uncharacteristic that the only question you want answered is why. Why did they do this thing that seemed to be so contrary to the person you thought you knew? Why would they set upon a course that would shatter your friendship or fracture any modicum of trust? Was it hubris? Was it hate? Was it ignorance or folly? That they did the thing seems less relevant than why they did the thing they did because needing to understand the reason behind their actions will likewise shed light on the situation in a far greater fashion than dissecting the action itself.

There are things in this life that God will be the cause of and things that God will allow. God had allowed Satan to sift Job, but it had not been God who had been the originator or cause of his oppression. This was Job’s paradox, the one thing he could not wrap his mind around, and the reason for this is that he was ignorant of the details that brought about his current afflictions.

Sometimes, the why is out of reach, beyond our understanding or ability to comprehend. Would I prefer that it was different? Yes, and I think anyone would, but there’s the reality of what is and what we would prefer reality to be. Once again, this is where trust comes to the fore and becomes imperative because without absolute trust in the goodness, sovereignty, and mercy of God, we would all be beside ourselves with angst and trepidation.

You know that I am not wicked, and yet, here I sit, having lost everything, covered in dust and worms, seeing my life as no more than a burden. Job couldn’t reconcile the God he’d known, served, worshiped, and trusted with what had befallen him, and he was trying to process and understand.

The only way for Job to understand why this was happening to him was to have the one piece of crucial information he was, as yet, not given to have. From a purely emotional position, this seems unfair, even mean-spirited, but who can know the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?

We’re usually brimming with opinions when we’re not the ones in the thick of it. We are certain that we know why something is happening to someone even though we have no insight into their spiritual walk, maturity, or situation, but we like to think we do. It makes us feel lordly, pontificating ad nauseum about everyone else, but once we’re the ones being tested and tried, we change our tune and begin to understand that perhaps telling someone that God was judging them when He isn’t wasn’t the height of wisdom and Christian brotherhood after all.

Being humble enough to acknowledge that we don’t know everything all the time, regardless of the situation, goes a long way to keeping from sticking our foot in our mouth so often as to make others wonder if we like the taste of feet.

If we find the time for fruitless debates but not the time to pray, and if we go out of our way to give someone our two cents while finding every excuse imaginable not to spend time with God, it reveals the inner desire of the heart beyond what we say with our lips or the image we try to project to those around us.

Your purpose and duty isn’t to try to convince someone that water is wet or that the sun is hot, but to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, daily growing in the knowledge of the God you serve and cementing your trust in Him.

There are things I think, things I know, and things that the Word of God declares to be the absolute truth. These things are not interchangeable, and my opinion on a given matter is neither on equal footing with the Word of God nor does my opinion supersede the Word in authority. I must submit to the will and Word of God even if the whole puzzle is not set before me, and even when I don’t see in whole but just in part.

Job’s friends had opinions. They had conjecture. They’d drawn conclusions based on personal experiences and the experiences of others but never inquired of the Lord if their thoughts were as His thoughts. Given the available information, they were well-reasoned, educated guesses, but in the end, that’s all they were.

God doesn’t guess; He knows. He is fully aware, without the drawback of blind spots or incomplete information about a certain situation. His knowledge of you extends to keeping an accurate count of the hairs on your head, an unmatched feat, even if you happen to have the time to wake up every morning and start counting.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.