Job: A Study of Hope Where there is Apparently no Hope

‘but who can withhold himself from speaking?’ Job 4:2  

 ‘all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.’ Job 14:14 

Where is God when He is most Needed?

‘Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?’ Zophar, one of Job’s ‘miserable comforters’ was piqued by the latter’s constant justifying of himself, and therefore rather rattled, he threw Job the above question.

Is there anyone who can really know God to perfection? No, it is impossible. Besides, if I should attempt it, I should lose my mind.

The pain which Job felt was gratuitous according to his thinking. He didn’t deserve it and the thought just drove him further up the wall. Without knowing it he was slowly approaching that point at which the whirlwind of questioning goes round and around in the head but without seemingly arriving at any end.  

Meeting God ‘face to face’

In the end Job prayed that he would meet God, and God granted his request (38-41). Job didn’t go to him but God came to Job. And then chapter after chapter the book opens on how God asked Job question after question – and strangely Job could not even answer one of them. He asked God to forgive him instead. He had only heard of him in the past but now he had met him in person. And though he was still in pain but Job acknowledged that he now understood. It happens to us too after a long night of the soul, it happens in the songs which God gives to his beloved, and though they are ransacked by pain.

There is always a point at which one reaches and beyond which pain means nothing. I pray that point comes to you soon too like it came to Job.  ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?’ thundered Paul, ‘shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’ And then Paul breaks into that dizzying of chants: ‘Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:37-38). 

Having Christ only for One’s Best Friend

And that is always the comfort of having Christ for one’s best friend. He understands. And in times like these the Spirit intercedes for us ‘with groanings which cannot be uttered.’ In Christ we are never alone. And so when all questions had yielded no answer for Job, he cleaved to his God as if with his clenched fist: ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him’. God grant you that confidence and courage especially at a time like this dear friend.

Life is a Journey

Life is a journey, and God humbly asks us not to tire ourselves with too much thinking. He asks us to trust him instead. It may not remove all the stones from the road but it sure brings relief after the wind has been spent. The dust will settle and the stream by the roadside will be clear again. The journey is still uphill but the heart brims with expectation at the rest which awaits us just beyond the shoulder.

Hasn’t he said that all things work together for our good? I believe that. It is the pathway to peace for me, and I pray it is your pathway too.

Let us pray: I can’t understand everything in life God, that’s why I cast all my cares upon you, because I believe your yoke is easy as you have promised and your burden is light. In my pain please make me to feel light again Lord I pray. Amen.