Category: Job

We’ve finally reached the end of the book of Job! Chapter 42 brings us to the conclusion of one of the most unique books of the Bible. We’ve had a front row seat to a meeting between God and Satan where they agreed to Satan’s plan to tear down Job under the watchful care of God. We listened in on over 30 chapters of dialogue between Job and his four friends. We cringed as we read their horrific counsel. In Job 38-41, we watched closely as God lovingly rebuked Job and reminded him who is God and who is not.

Now we come to the end as Job responds one more time to God. Previously his ears had heard of God, but now he has finally seen Him (Job 42:5). Job repents of his pride and from the times when he demanded an answer from God. We can relate to Job in his questions throughout the book, but now we get to see how Job’s love and trust for the Lord have grown through his trials and challenges. All things considered, Job proved why he is called blameless and upright (Job 1).

In his book 30 Days to Growing Your Faith, Max Anders (paraphrasing Daniel Defoe and The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe) says “God will often deliver us in a manner that seems, initially, to destroy us.” We have seen this play out with Job, have we not? It certainly appears that he is being destroyed, but ultimately God delivered him to a deeper intimacy with Himself through these very trials.

In the end, as Job dies as “an old man and full of years” (Job 42:17), he’s gone from knowing about God to actually knowing and seeing God. Would you be willing to do and undergo whatever it takes to say the same? Do you trust God to use your circumstances, both good and bad, to see, understand, and worship Him in deeper intimacy than ever before?

As we wrap up Job, let’s collectively thank God for this book and for the story and example of Job. God allowed a blameless and upright man to walk through unspeakably brutal trials for His own glory and for the good of Job. May God give us all this kind of faith!

Describing fierce and mighty beasts continues in Job 41 as God questions Job and further underscores God’s power and might. Job is still listening and silent, as God concludes with this detailed description of the Leviathan, a mysterious, powerful beast. Imaginations may be stirred as we read the description of the Leviathan. Is this creature a dragon or a menacing crocodile?  

Not only is Job unable to catch the Leviathan with a hook or subdue the beast with his man-made weapons, but he is also not equal to this beast’s power, the king over all the proud beasts. God clearly reminds Job that this Leviathan and everything under heaven are made by Him. God reveals that the Leviathan cannot be defeated by man, but God as creator is not intimidated. As Creator and sustainer of all things, God reinforces that He alone is able to subdue and deliver. God has vividly made His point: I am God. And Job, you are not.

We have to make sure we grasp what God is saying here! God’s reminder to us is the same: I am God, you are not. With that perspective, we (like Job) are challenged to face enemies that seem as unconquerable as a Leviathan. Whether it is a monster of addiction, financial ruin, marital conflict, terminal illness, abuse, pride, or busyness, our hope and our help come from the Almighty, all-powerful, creator God. He is omnipotent, mighty to save, light over darkness, God Almighty!

Throughout his ordeal, Job continues to look to God sometimes in faith, sometimes in despair, sometimes in doubt and confusion and yet, his angst and questions are directed to God. His humble response will be revealed in the final chapter, but the clear picture of Job’s need (and ours) is to humbly recall and trust who God is. Deuteronomy 32:4 is a great reminder of God’s character, “He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He.”

God is clearly not finished with Job. Job’s attitude and response to all that has happened shifts dramatically. He turns away from being a sufferer and toward his rightful place as a worshiper.

Job comes to recognize he has no business asking for an audience with his creator. Job says, “I lay my hand over my mouth” to demonstrate his understanding of how little he knows. David Guzik in the Enduring Word Commentary said this about the shift in Job’s posture: “The different tone was not because Job’s circumstances had substantially changed. He was still in misery and had lost virtually everything. The tone changed because while he once felt that God had forsaken him, now he felt and knew that God was with Him.” He cannot judge God or begin to understand all that God knows about him and his circumstances.

How often do we stop to realize how little we know? It may be hard to wrap our minds around just how little we fully understand. An easier question to answer might be, “How often have we been wrong about something?” We can all remember a time when we did not know the whole story. When we were unaware of some key details in a given situation. When we graduate from school and think we know nearly everything about almost anything. When we realize if we got the job, spouse or house we wanted, then we would have never known about the one we ended up with that is so much better than the original one we wanted so bad. Or when we get what we want and find it is not worth as much as we thought. When we think we know what we want when we retire in ten years but we do not like the coffee we ordered this morning. We are often wrong. We are often wrong because we do not know much.

Job teaches us what to do when we realize we do not know much. We should put our hands over our mouths. We should stop telling God and ourselves what we are so utterly uninformed about. We should come to realize we are God’s children and not God’s teacher. We should realize our place in His kingdom is not one with a speaking part. While our culture may have taught us differently, God teaches us to put ourselves aside.

Job saw himself as a sufferer who had reason to tell God some things. We can all expect suffering in this life. Even when we do, let us learn, as Job did, to listen to what God has to say. Our suffering is not the whole story or maybe not even a crucial part of the story. Job’s realization stands in stark contrast to his friends who have tried to apply their limited knowledge (and lack of context) to what has transpired with Job.

Job 39 is a continuation of what began the chapter before. God is on the scene and is asking Job question after question, showing more and more just how intricately God is involved in every detail of creation. It can be easy to forget God’s supremacy and the wonders of His creation when we constantly surround ourselves with nothing but our own creations such as houses, buildings, appliances, cars, and technology. Even though we are always surrounded by God‘s creation, sometimes it takes us stepping away from our own creations to be able to see and appreciate what our Creator has done. Sometimes this can be a retreat into the wilderness, a walk around the block, or simply slowing down and purposefully focusing on parts of God’s creation that we miss going through life at normal speed.

When we take this retreat, it can be truly humbling. Nature is full of incredible design that leading scientists today still cannot replicate and at best can partially mimic. In comparison, of the stuff we own, we don’t understand how most of it is made or how it functions. Yet, we have a Creator that knows all of His creation; and it is this same Creator that we presume to be able to reason out His thoughts and wisdom. 

This is one of the points God is making in the passage of Job 39. Instead of challenging and deciphering, we should be humbly trusting and walking steadfastly in His embrace. If we believe that He designed the seasons of the world and the imaginative human brain with its intricacies, He can be trusted to know our purpose and know what’s best for us far greater than any person we know; and if we believe this same Creator led His Son to die on the cross to bring us closer to Him, He is not just a capable and brilliant leader but trustworthy beyond what we deserve!

Let us take the time to encounter the magnificence of our Lord by stepping away from our hubris and the possessions of our design so that we can approach Him the appropriate way, not as equals but as a creation to its Creator. Then, God will be able to appropriately do work in our hearts. Let us find our Savior in that moment and seek Him out this way daily so that we can step-by-step merge our paths with His will.

In today’s reading, Yahweh finally speaks! After so many monologues, dialogues, and back-and-forths, Job (and we) finally get to hear from God. God’s response comes from what is described as a whirlwind or a storm, a common way of describing His unimaginable power and presence. God delivers an amazing and poetic collection of reflective questions for Job to consider and contrast against his own humanity. Did you pick up on a little sarcasm from God in verse 21 when He points out Job’s human limitations? This passage is a reminder to us of how little we truly reflect upon all that God is capable of. God’s response to Job is a helpful instruction that we should all follow–to creatively and humbly contemplate His sovereignty every day.

God peppers Job with question after question. Before He is willing to provide any answers, God tells Job He has some questions for Job to answer first (v. 3). Honestly, this was probably not the response Job or his friends were hoping to hear. Reading these words from God today, it’s easy to assume they are coming from a place of anger. At first glance, it can almost feel as if God is belittling Job, but if we read it like that we have missed the point. Our tendency when we bring our concerns before God, we usually spend the majority of our energy selfishly making demands, instead of first reflecting on how great He is. What if Job had done that?

God’s response to Job, while a firm rebuke, is more of a loving declaration of who He is, and how He is over every aspect of creation. Like a good father, God’s response to Job is ultimately an invitation back to worship His glory. As a response to God’s appearance in this chapter (after we have read for so many weeks without God being present), let’s be reminded of how amazing it is to be loved by the one true God, who also intentionally cares over the universe we live in.

Often in life, we view ourselves as the main character in every story. If not every story, we definitely at the very least view ourselves as the main character in our own story. We do what we want to do; we orientate our lives around our individual passions, goals, and dreams. If someone cuts us off while driving, we are quickly prone to frustration at what an inconvenience that was for us, without maybe ever considering that the other driver may have been in a rush or in an emergency. We are often more concerned with what other people can give us rather than what we can give other people. Ultimately, we are self-serving in our fleshly nature.

However, when we follow Jesus we are pledging allegiance to a whole new way of life. God becomes the main character in our story, and we revolve our lives around His purposes, His authority, His desires, and His will for our lives. This authority that God possesses as our Creator and Lord is displayed so majestically all throughout the book of Job. Specifically in Job 37 we see that His authority and purposes will never make total sense to us. He is a holy and sovereign God, who knows what is best far more than what we might think is best. Verse 5 says that, “He does great things that we cannot comprehend.” It goes on to describe storms that the Lord commands and allows to fall on the Earth. 

All of creation bows at His directives. He is not just the main character in our story, but He is the main character over all of creation. The clouds, the moon, the sun, are all under His control, and so are we. In many ways the storm that Elihu describes is a picture of the destruction, trials, and chaos we all experience on this side of eternity. For the audience of Job, it was also a physical reminder that even if snow falls, and they can no longer farm and work, that God will continue to provide and be faithful in the midst of both physical and spiritual hardship. He will continue to do whatever He discerns will bring Him the most glory, and we get to submit under His loving authority. He will accomplish everything He intends to accomplish on Earth for no purposes of His can be thwarted. His directives can flow from love or correction, but it’s ultimately all for His glory and our good, even when we cannot understand His wondrous works.

Thus, this chapter serves as a compelling reminder to trust God in the midst of the storms, and trust that He always remains in control of every detail, for there is nothing we experience here on Earth that hasn’t passed through the sovereignty of God’s hand. Therefore, not only can we trust Him, but verses 23-24 tell us that we also ought to fear Him and worship Him in response to His majesty, power, and righteousness.

Today’s reading marks the turning point in Elihu’s final discourse with Job. In verses 1-21, Elihu continues in calling Job to repent of the sin he thinks he must be unrepentantly walking in, and invites Job to humble himself and call out to God for help. In the world as Elihu supposes it to be, he has totally ruled out the possibility of Job’s innocent standing before God. Job is clearly in sin and, by having continued to delay repentance, he determines that Job has actually incurred further judgement by not repenting. Ultimately, this kind of counsel drove Job crazy. It demanded that he forsake his integrity and make a show of repentance just to please his friends, a lose-lose situation that finally causes Job to break down and cry out in anger to God. 

In verse 22, Elihu’s posture towards their present situation seems to take a sharp and unpredicted turn. Where before he speaks definitively in regard to the nature of Job’s plight, here he begins to speak with open acknowledgement of the unknowable nature of our God. His words also become markedly more dramatic and anticipatory, almost as though something around the group has changed physically to motivate the observations he is now making. 

In light of the remaining chapters in Job, many scholars suggest that something powerful is implicitly happening here: Elihu is describing in stately detail what he is watching unfold before his eyes. Later in Job, we will read about God riding in on a cyclone to meet with Job. Perhaps Elihu is watching God ride in from the heavens in all of his glory, or perhaps is watching the storm begin to form and seeing glimpses of this glory as it happens. 

In the face of a marked change in the literal atmosphere, and in view of the majesty of God’s ability to write the very laws of nature and “[draw] up drops of water, which distill as rain from the mist,” Elihu starts to recognize that he doesn’t know quite as much about God as he thinks that he does. Doesn’t this happen to us? We get close to finally putting God in a neat little box, thinking we have drawn close to relative understanding, and then we are shown even a small glimpse of God’s glory and all of our understanding is shattered in comparison to His stately majesty. When we get in the presence of God, we start to know how little we actually know, and we see, like Elihu, that if God can direct the rain and the lightning that we probably don’t need to be the ones who have it all figured out anyways.