Job’s Revelation and Restoration

This afternoon, after some office work, I had a session with my fitness trainer. I believe after last week he is being more cautious in my workout sessions to make sure I don’t overdo. I then participated in the Colorado State University homecoming parade with the Larimer County Republicans. It had been a long time since I’ve done something like that. The weather was great and the parade seemed to go well. Now if CSU can beat  Air  Force it will be a good weekend.

BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… Surely I spoke of things I did not understand; I talked of things too wonderful for me to know.My ears had heard of you before, but now my eyes have seen you….I will change my heart and life.” Job 42:3,5,6 NCV

In the Book of Job we read a lot about what Job had to say about his life and God. We read what his friends had to say about Job and God. In the final chapters we see what God had to say about Himself, Job and his friends. God responds to Job first and then his friends. He begins by asking Job some penetrating questions.

God asks Job, “Would you say that I am unfair? Would you blame me to make yourself look right?” (Job 40:8 NCV) That question by itself is enough to get ones attention. How often people blame God for being “unfair.” If not based on what happens in their own life, then it is what they observe in the world. Pointing a “finger at God” to avoid ones own accountability for life, actions and attitudes doesn’t “cut it” with God.

God goes on in his discourse with Job to address his splendor and majesty and rule over all that is in the world.  At the end Job responds by saying, “I know that you can do all things and that no plan of yours can be ruined. You asked, ‘Who is this that made my purpose unclear by saying things that are not true?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand; I talked of things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:1,2 NCV)

God’s purpose for ones life and for our world will come to pass. What happens is God’s purpose is confused and distorted by the thoughts and ideas of people. This should challenge us all when we “speak for and of God.” We must be sure that we are not venturing into “things too wonderful for us to know.” We understand so little, our insight is so limited. As Paul said, “we look through a glass darkly…” (1 Cor. 13:12 KJV)

Job’s sufferings and His encounter with God, changed his life and his view of God. He said, My ears had heard of you before, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5 NCV) How often in the natural have we “heard or known about someone” and then we meet that person and discover what they are really like. That’s what is seems Job is communicating. He knew about God, He had some ideas about God, but know he had met God and received a revelation of the Lord he had never had before.

I believe any time suffering, tests or challenges come to our lives it is an opportunity to learn something about the Lord that we never knew. Or, we experience in practice what we only knew before in theory. That is something that I can related to from my experiences of the last two years.

Job’s response to his greater understanding of God, is “I will change my heart and life.” That is a good description of repentance. True repentance is an encounter with God, an understanding of the Lord in a way that changes how we, think and feel and what we do.

While Job’s understanding of God was not complete, it was better than his “comforters.” The Lord commands Job’s three friends to bring sacrifices and to have Job pray for them. Was that easy for Job? These three had been more of a “thorn in his flesh” than a true  source of comfort. They worked hard to condemn Job and use a faulty concept of God to make Job feel his suffering was rightly deserved.

We don’t know how Job felt, but we know what he did and we see the result. After he prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his possession, family and status and health. I don’t believe Job’s restoration would have been complete if he continued to be tormented by the words of his friends and carried unforgiveness and resentment for them in his heart.

We can learn much at the end of Job’s life. We need to accept that our understanding of God will always be limited. We need to allow the trials of life to give us a clearer picture of the Lord’s character and ways and allow that to build our trust and relationship with Him. We need to understand that restoration and recovery relates to our relationship with others as much as it does to God. There is nothing the Lord allows to be taken away, that He can’t fully restore and then some, if that His plan and purpose for our life.