We Don’t Always Know
We Don’t Always Know
The Lord answered Job: “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Let him who argues with God give an answer.” (Job 40:1–2)
We Don’t Understand
Job was a righteous man. We’re told as much in the opening verse of the book of Job. And yet things didn’t turn out so great for him. In fact, through no fault of his own, he basically lost everything—sons and daughters, houses and possessions, his health, the support of his wife and friends, everything. It’s hard to imagine losing that much.
As he was going through these devastating losses, Job somehow managed to hold on to his integrity and faith for quite a while, as evidenced by his response to his wife’s suggestion just to “curse God and die!” He tells her, “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” We’re then told that “throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said” (see Job 2:9–10). That’s remarkable.
The Breaking Point
Eventually, though, Job became angry at God. Not so much because of how things had turned out but because God was silent about the whole thing. Job wanted some answers! If he had done something wrong, he wanted to know about it. The silent treatment from God was killing him. Ever feel that way? The book of Job affirms that God is good but that we can’t always understand what He’s up to. We’re called to trust and obey anyway.
Bottom Line
The book of Job is in the Bible for a reason—God deemed his story necessary for us to know. One takeaway is that God is far bigger than we can know.