Less Complaining and More Admiring

If I am fully prepared, a test is not a frightful experience for me. Then again, if I’ve not studied, I might panic a bit. Life is fertile soil for testing.  The Old Testament character, Job, faced a challenging test; a test for which he was not fully prepared. The test: “If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!” Job 23:3 (NIV)

Job confesses that he is bitter and powerless before a God who seems to be in hiding while Job is suffering. C.S. Lewis, while grieving the loss of his wife, wrote in A Grief Observed: “When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him (God), you are tempted to feel his claims upon you as an interruption…”   “When you go to Him when your need is desperate… what do you find….a door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside…”

Job helps us learn that the absence of God does not mean the alienation of God.
  
Job 23:9-10 (NIV) 9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. 10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
 
Faith is moving closer to God.  It is not the futile attempts to cover the breach of an uncrossable chasm. Even though Job cannot answer the test question - “Where is God” - faith tells him that God and he will understand each other now, and that God will not use His great power to craft a test of multiple choice or matching answers. This test is an essay. The question is not where is God, but who is God?

Job discovers that even though he cannot see God, God sees him!  Job’s eyes open wide and he understands the reason for his suffering. God is testing him.  If Job chooses to admire God for being God rather than complaining about suffering and God’s lack of involvement or eliminating it altogether, he will begin to see glimmers of gold. Gold — evidences of a Christ follower’s advancements in faith and trust.

Even though the reason for Job’s suffering is still hidden, in the mind of God, it has a purpose. Job’s admiration of God tells him the purpose is good, and therefore the suffering is doable as he anticipates the emergence of gold.