Now my eyes have seen you
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:
What did I like about today’s passage?
It would be madness at this point to say that I now understand everything about God and suffering. Clearly the writer is not trying to tie up a simple idea with a neat little bow as much as smash us around the heads with the enormity of God’s glory. It changes Job, and through this his family, community and country are also blessed.
It turns out that while our fingers might be pointing at ideas we think we have mastered or people we know are to blame for all of our ills, God’s arms are wide open to show us wonders beyond our comprehension, unfathomable depths of concern for and involvement with us, surprising kinds of intervention and unfeasible amounts of love for us to share.
Have you seen this? Has God impressed you yet? I don’t think anything can change and empower us as much as an encounter with the living God, even if we can’t understand everything about it.
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
Is there a cooler dad anywhere? I want to spend time with him! Also, I think I can appreciate some of the importance of family and relationships to God through this whole story. It illustrates how religion without relationship was only ever going to be a frustrating experience for us, leading to misunderstanding and conflict - all the things people blame religion for before they have really got Jesus.
In a way I think Job points towards Jesus - blameless but suffering, and given the ability by Father God of speaking prophetic truth about him and performing some priestly duties to benefit some people. But Jesus will be so much more, the fullness of God in a form we can relate to, a prophet, a priest and also a King for the benefit of us all.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
The question has kept crossing my mind about how God might be steering and preparing us to meet grieving, suffering people who want answers or at least a satisfying way forwards. As someone who enjoys exploring ideas, I’m happy to debate hard questions with anyone who wants to reconcile the existence of suffering in a world with a loving, powerful God.
But I don’t want to trouble my neighbours the way Job’s friends troubled him with their understanding. What if we simply don’t know why? I am resolving to be less like the clever people with answers, but more like Job after he stopped arguing and looked at God.
Who am I going to share this with?
I don’t yet know. I expect there will be time to hear people’s stories and worries soon enough. I pray that the Spirit will move us to stop, grieve and cry if we need to, but also meet and move us to wonder about hope, love and “things too wonderful for me to know.”