Job Part Two Dive
WHERE WERE YOU?
How are you going in the Book of Job? Don’t your friends look amazing compared to Job’s friends? Here at TYB, we want you to read the Bible and gain a new perspective. Most people read Job and get angry at a God that would do this to him. How dare God do these things! But is that really what is happening in this text, or are we missing the whole point?
God’s providence and protection
One thing that I couldn’t get past when studying this book was God’s providence. It hits you in the face from the first chapter, let me show you what jumped out at me. Jump back to Chapter 1
J 1:10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.
WOW. I couldn’t get past this statement! Remember, the revelation at the beginning is the key to unlocking the whole book. This scripture states the blessing of God over His people. The sovereignty, the provision and protection of God. Once I knew that this was the key to reading Job, I began to mirror read the rest of the text. When Job said the list of things that was taken from him, I began to realise the incredible nature of the protection of God over our lives. Does it stop bad things from happening? No. Does it stop life from happening to us? No. But for those in Christ, we have the incredible privilege of having the blessing and protection of God over our families, our work, our lives. And for that I am grateful. If this is the worst case scenario of what happens when God lifts His ‘divine providence’ off a person, then I am not going to go to fear or get angry in this revelation but I am going to go to gratefulness and security in the providence of my God over my life. And this story reveals the value of that blessing. Just like Job, we can’t earn it, we can’t work for it. It’s not there because we are in ourselves holy, upright and righteous. No! We have the covering and protection of the Father because He loves us and because we are in Christ.
This book shows me what happens when God lifts His protection. Satan has used this book to get people angry with God for manipulating Job, but that is not the first thing that I get from this text. What I get from it is a grateful heart; that God is in control and the revelation of what His divine protection looks like. His divine protection is so powerful that Satan goes before God and attacks the very power of this divine protection. Now I know it’s controversial—why would God lift this from Job?—but that is not meant to be the focus. The focus is how incredible and powerful is the divine covering that comes from being in God. And how much more powerful is it now we are in the New Testament and in Christ. The ‘in Christ’ protection over our lives is essential and not to be taken for granted. That is the warning that I get from Job.
where are you?
The second point that I couldn’t get over was the ‘Where were you?’ theme. Time and time again Job questions God and asks Him to let him stand before Him to ask why He is pouring this wrath on him. Job wants to plead his case, like God needed convincing that Job was innocent. Like God was the one who physically did this to Job—when it was Satan doing the destroying. God just removed His protection. And again, remember back in the beginning, this is not happening because God is angry with Job or, as Job says, considers Job His enemy.
J 19:10 He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree. His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.
Really! The one who has done the tearing down is Satan, God is not angry at Job. Don’t you love the raw emotion of this book? But you have to be very careful not to get an opinion about God from the ramblings of the emotional Job and his friends. The same happens in our lives, until you get God’s perspective on a situation, it’s better to not make a judgement of what God is doing or about God Himself.
Check out another heart wrenching verse:
J 23:3 If I only knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!
J 23:8 But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him.
When things are at their darkest in our lives, you can feel like God goes missing or silent. You feel like He is not with you anymore. And the need to cry out to God ‘Where are you?’ comes from your deepest being. But be confident, this is what the Book of Job is telling us—He is there. He is across everything that is happening, He is listening to every word, He is in control. He is in the night seasons, He is with you in the darkness, He is carrying you through the valleys.
Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.
Having God doesn’t guarantee that nothing will go wrong, it does however guarantee that when you walk through the valley, He will be with you.
The second ‘Where were you?’ moment is the most powerful moment of the text. The climactic point when God answers after being silent from the beginning, listening to Job, to his friends try and give God’s wisdom on the situation. Imagine that moment, God sitting in heaven listening to someone who is supposedly speaking on His behalf talking rubbish! Imagine God resisting the feeling to not jump in and clarify the point or send a lightning bolt to stop the conversation! Imagine God waiting for the perfect timing for His perspective to be revealed. And it happens at the end of the book! In Chapter 28, the LORD speaks. And get ready, He is about to change their perspective.
the lord speaks
The conversations have made God out to be a petty, small-minded God that demands perfection. ‘You must have sinned, Job, for God to do this to you’. But God doesn’t lower His answers to their petty perspectives. He doesn’t address what you would expect, He brings their perspective up to His. At times, God won’t answer you the way you think, because He doesn’t want to satisfy the human need for small perspective. But He will answer you and bring your perspective up to His level.
I love Chapter 38! I mean, just read the first section with me 38:2
J 38:2-3 Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
And here it comes…
4 Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Oh, my goodness! This is like God saying, did you think that I came down to your petty view of who I am, did you think that I would prove to you as the small-minded God that has been portrayed in your conversations through the hard time? Let me remind you of who I am.
Know again from the reader’s perspective we have journeyed from the throne room of God, knowing God’s perspective of the situation, through man and his friends trying to struggle to understand what is happening by bringing God down to their perspective. And God now is answering as we the audience have known all along–He created the universe, He shut up the sea, He takes care of the doe bears with her fawn, He can pull Leviathan with a fishhook.
The way God answers is not showing a mean God that dictates over His people, really read it TYB. God is showing His kindness even in the smallest areas of taking care of doe bears (how cute is that!). God is angry that they would question His justice. Check out Chapter 40:8, Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
This is God taking back His voice, everyone else has tried to explain what He was doing through-out this book and presenting God as mean and unjust. And God comes in as His own defender and presents His own case. Don’t you love that Job wanted to present his case to God but it ends up that God presents His case to Job and changes his perspective of everything that happened? There are times when we want to present our case to God and perhaps we need to stop and let God answer our complaints. It’s God’s time to talk! And get ready, because He will raise you up to His point of view of the situation. He will show you the ‘big picture’ and what is really happening behind the scenes in your darkest moments.
What a book! Finish your adventure in this incredible, mind-bending text!
recommended
An Introduction to the Old Testament
Job part One
Job part Two