Opportunity to deepen faith
Job 42:1-6
Job answered the Lord and said, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear and I will speak; I will question you and you make it known to Me.’
I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
These verses express Job’s final response to his God and Lord. A repentant confessional from the Lord’s servant, who having accused God of hiding His counsel about his suffering, found himself bereft of sufficient wisdom when cross-examined by God Himself (cf. Job 38-41).
The point? Even in the worst of our sufferings, God alone possesses wisdom and knowledge about all things planned and/or permitted far exceeding anything we have even begun to understand. In all things, nonetheless, a good God is to be trusted and humbly worshipped.
Indeed, we may not ever fully understand. In the tough stuff, we crave answers, and yet in the demand expose ourselves to the enticement of Satan’s lies. Jesus told Peter that “Satan (has) demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). Our enemy demands to test our faith’s resolve. Our immature insistence on having all the answers can diminish the tenacious faith our Father looks for in us.
“We are designed by our Creator to live in a world without sin and death (Genesis 1-2), and this is why we long for beauty, justice, and peace. We were made for a different world other than the one we live in, and the feeling of disorder is one of nostalgia,” writes Mark Clark in The Problem of God. Learning to trust God in the tough times, while lacking the answers our hearts yearn for, produces endurance, an endurance which over days, weeks, even years, crafts the mature character of Jesus in us. Needed are not answers, but a greater heart-anchoring view of God himself.