Lessons About God From Job

This post originally appeared on my old blog, The King and His Kingdom.

I think the book of Job is one of the more underrated books of the Bible. Sure, it may seem like 42 chapters of rambling dialogue, but if you read it enough times to see which parts matter to the story and who’s talking, it’s a pretty concise story that tells us a lot about God’s character.

It starts off with the story of how Job has everything he could ever want, but then after a rather confusing conversation between God and Satan, loses everything. And so his friends show up to “comfort” him, while he asks God why this would happen to him – a dialogue which takes up most of the book, up to chapter 32. 

Job’s friends say a lot of things that sound pretty true about God’s character. But Job, and in the end, God, say that they don’t speak the truth, because of how they apply that truth to Job’s situation.

So basically Job and three of his friends argue for 30 some chapters about whether or not what happens to Job is his fault, as a punishment for his sin. Job keeps insisting that he’s done nothing to deserve his loss, and his friends keep insisting that he must have. 

Finally, a fourth friend speaks up, starting out with some pretty rich lines about how he waited to speak because he was the youngest, but it’s God who gives understanding and older people don’t always know better. He condemns both Job and his friends for thinking they know God’s ways when He is so much greater than us. 

Up to this point, it’s not unlike conversations we might have. 

And then God speaks up. 

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” He says, and proceeds to list off all the things that He is sovereign over that we could never dream of understanding: the limits of the sea, the dawn, the dwelling of light, the storehouses of snow and rain, the stars, the heavens, the wild animals, and a few beasts that we don’t even know about. 

In fact, some of those passages about Him being in control of the weather are my favorites to cling to when the weather is giving me anxiety. Whether it’s a severe lack of rain, or snow and cold that hangs on much longer than it should, it helps to know that God “causes it to come, whether for correction, or for His land, or for mercy.”

But anyway. Back to the story.

Even though in the beginning of the story we see this conversation between God and Satan that seems to explain why Job is afflicted, God never tells Job that in the end of the book. He simply shows up and asserts His own sovereignty, then restores Job’s fortunes – but never really answers his questions. 

The application for us? Sometimes we look way too hard for the answers to our questions about why God does what He does, when He asks us simply to trust in His infinite wisdom. 

We do have one thing that Job didn’t have – faith in the person and work of Jesus. At one point Job says, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Sometimes we use this verse to talk about Jesus, but Job didn’t know about Jesus yet.

God may not answer us out of a whirlwind when we have questions, but in a lot of ways we already have more answers to our questions than Job did. Job knew the great and mighty God who created the earth; but we can know Him as the gentle and lowly Savior who walked on it.

And while we may not be able to understand everything He does, every day that we walk with Him is a new opportunity to learn more about His heart for us.