Devotional Thoughts for the Week of January 12, 2020 - Learning from Job
Ever since I started reading Scripture I have found the book of Job very difficult to read. My sympathy for Job’s suffering brings frustration with his unhelpful friends. I tend to skim through the pages, longing for Chapter 38 when God finally speaks. This week, however, the experience has been different. It has been more like watching men wrestle with deep questions as their current reality refuses to fit into the paradigm to which they so doggedly try to cling. In their black and white thinking, righteous living always leads to God’s tangible blessing and wicked living always leads to ruin. It was a very basic formula which they firmly believed. In some ways life would certainly be simpler if this were the way things worked. The friends were so sure this was the way God dealt with His creation that they were blinded to examples all around them of wicked people prospering and righteous people struggling. Job, because of his desperation to make sense of the disaster of his own life, recognized before the others that their God-box didn’t actually reflect reality.
In the early part of the dialogue, Job talks to his friends in his striving to make sense of the horror he is enduring. Broken by grief and loss and confusion, he cries out for answers and for relief. His processing is messy, disconnected, raw. Much of the focus of his questions shifts from his companions to his God (7:7). He reminds himself how great and powerful God is, and clings to his hope in God even as his strength ebbs away (13:15). He is confident of his righteousness in the sight of God (a view God shares, as evidenced in chapter one). He longs for God to remember him, to miss the days when He and Job were in communion (14:13-15). Job’s battered heart yearns to see the God in whom he has placed all his hope (19:27). Job starts out searching for answers, but he transitions to searching for renewed fellowship with his God. As the book comes to a close we see that, in God’s response, Job never gets an explanation but he does come to know God far more deeply and personally than he ever imagined. All he can say in response is, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (42:5). Through all the struggle, the wrestling was good for Job. In the end he received a priceless gift - deep intimacy with God, and he was the better for it.
Oswald Chambers said, “The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.” In other words, prayer is not about getting God to fulfill our requests or even answer our questions. Prayer is a process of drawing near to God and seeking his heart in the midst of our circumstances. “Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself, the Source of all life” (David Butts, Forgotten Power, p 30). When we come in prayer to the God who spoke creation into existence, “And it was so” we gain renewed perspective. The problems that seem so insurmountable are very small in the presence of Almighty God.
I do not know how long Job lived before the events recorded in Scripture. He was old enough to have ten adult children, to be well established and highly respected in the community. We look at Job as having had the worst life imaginable, but I do not think he would classify it that way. The events and dialogue recorded for us may have lasted only a couple of weeks or a month. Although Job and his wife definitely grieved many years for their children, their life did not stay awful indefinitely. In fact, “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first” (42:12). God renewed his wealth and gave him ten more children. “After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years” (42:16,17). In our simple human thinking, we may be tempted to look at this book and conclude that the benefit was not worth the horror Job endured. But that call is not ours to make. We are not equipped to see all the factors, nor are we in a position of second-guessing God’s decisions. It would be beyond arrogant to do so.
I am finally thankful for the book of Job and what it teaches me about problems in life and pain that seems senseless. Even though we are not capable of understanding the way God thinks or the things He allows in our lives, we catch a broader glimpse of His perspective through this passage. God accepted Job’s struggles and anger and questions. He drew Job into a deeper knowledge of Himself that ultimately satisfied Job in a way that no explanation could. Whatever you may be struggling or wrestling with today, whatever you are pleading with God to change, I encourage you (as the Spirit is encouraging me) to make the focus of your prayer on drawing near to God. Cry out for His presence and for ears to hear His voice. Remind yourself, as Job did, of God’s great love and power. Remember his great faithfulness in the past to you and to others. Cling to God by faith even as you are waiting for His response. He may or may not give you the happy ending He gave Job, but He will give you Himself, which is of immeasurable valuable.
Lynn
Ever since I started reading Scripture I have found the book of Job very difficult to read. My sympathy for Job’s suffering brings frustration with his unhelpful friends. I tend to skim through the pages, longing for Chapter 38 when God finally speaks. This week, however, the experience has been different. It has been more like watching men wrestle with deep questions as their current reality refuses to fit into the paradigm to which they so doggedly try to cling. In their black and white thinking, righteous living always leads to God’s tangible blessing and wicked living always leads to ruin. It was a very basic formula which they firmly believed. In some ways life would certainly be simpler if this were the way things worked. The friends were so sure this was the way God dealt with His creation that they were blinded to examples all around them of wicked people prospering and righteous people struggling. Job, because of his desperation to make sense of the disaster of his own life, recognized before the others that their God-box didn’t actually reflect reality.
In the early part of the dialogue, Job talks to his friends in his striving to make sense of the horror he is enduring. Broken by grief and loss and confusion, he cries out for answers and for relief. His processing is messy, disconnected, raw. Much of the focus of his questions shifts from his companions to his God (7:7). He reminds himself how great and powerful God is, and clings to his hope in God even as his strength ebbs away (13:15). He is confident of his righteousness in the sight of God (a view God shares, as evidenced in chapter one). He longs for God to remember him, to miss the days when He and Job were in communion (14:13-15). Job’s battered heart yearns to see the God in whom he has placed all his hope (19:27). Job starts out searching for answers, but he transitions to searching for renewed fellowship with his God. As the book comes to a close we see that, in God’s response, Job never gets an explanation but he does come to know God far more deeply and personally than he ever imagined. All he can say in response is, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (42:5). Through all the struggle, the wrestling was good for Job. In the end he received a priceless gift - deep intimacy with God, and he was the better for it.
Oswald Chambers said, “The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.” In other words, prayer is not about getting God to fulfill our requests or even answer our questions. Prayer is a process of drawing near to God and seeking his heart in the midst of our circumstances. “Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself, the Source of all life” (David Butts, Forgotten Power, p 30). When we come in prayer to the God who spoke creation into existence, “And it was so” we gain renewed perspective. The problems that seem so insurmountable are very small in the presence of Almighty God.
I do not know how long Job lived before the events recorded in Scripture. He was old enough to have ten adult children, to be well established and highly respected in the community. We look at Job as having had the worst life imaginable, but I do not think he would classify it that way. The events and dialogue recorded for us may have lasted only a couple of weeks or a month. Although Job and his wife definitely grieved many years for their children, their life did not stay awful indefinitely. In fact, “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first” (42:12). God renewed his wealth and gave him ten more children. “After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years” (42:16,17). In our simple human thinking, we may be tempted to look at this book and conclude that the benefit was not worth the horror Job endured. But that call is not ours to make. We are not equipped to see all the factors, nor are we in a position of second-guessing God’s decisions. It would be beyond arrogant to do so.
I am finally thankful for the book of Job and what it teaches me about problems in life and pain that seems senseless. Even though we are not capable of understanding the way God thinks or the things He allows in our lives, we catch a broader glimpse of His perspective through this passage. God accepted Job’s struggles and anger and questions. He drew Job into a deeper knowledge of Himself that ultimately satisfied Job in a way that no explanation could. Whatever you may be struggling or wrestling with today, whatever you are pleading with God to change, I encourage you (as the Spirit is encouraging me) to make the focus of your prayer on drawing near to God. Cry out for His presence and for ears to hear His voice. Remind yourself, as Job did, of God’s great love and power. Remember his great faithfulness in the past to you and to others. Cling to God by faith even as you are waiting for His response. He may or may not give you the happy ending He gave Job, but He will give you Himself, which is of immeasurable valuable.
Lynn