Chaos

We see so much happening in our world today that makes no sense to us. We begin wondering where God has gone. Why has He abandoned us? People who believe in Jesus as their Savior do not have enough food to eat. How can a loving God allow a baby to suffer with a horrible disease? Why is war coming to my town when we have been praying for peace? Questions could fill this whole page, and yet when we ask God “why” or “when”, it seems He has no answer.

Job’s Experience

In the book of Job, we find answers for our today-world, too. Job had no idea what was happening behind the scenes in God’s throne room. He did not hear Satan taunt God with the accusation that Job only loved God because of all that He had given him. Job was not there when God gave permission to Satan to bring evil things into Job’s life! Job had no say in that transaction at all!

Neither did Job understand that God set limits on how far Satan could go in his torment of Job. Job’s wife told him to just give up and die. Job’s friends told Job that it was all something he had not done correctly. Job himself thought he had a good enough relationship with God that he deserved answers to why all these things happened to him. When Job asked God for those answers, all God said was a reminder that HE was God and Job was a man He had created – God owed him no explanations.

That sounds cruel to us, and we dislike such an answer from God! But God reminded Job of the great difference between them (Job 38-39) and Job turned from his despair-filled questions and simply bowed to God’s greater person and understanding (Job 42). What does that mean in our lives today as we see so many hard things happening all around us? We, too, must turn from our questions and seek Him rather than answers. 

God’s Perspective and Promises

Does that mean God will never give us answers to our questions? Not at all! When we see Him face to face, He will show us all the ways in which He made each of our struggles or hardships into something good – as He promised in Romans 8:28-29. Now we are too close to the tapestry of our life to see the “big picture” as He sees it – all the past and all the future at once! An example in this writer’s life is how Jesus led me to obtain a degree in education and then a week later took away the job that was promised for that education. It made no sense! Why should I have spent that money and not get the job after all? But a few years later He led me to another position that was far more satisfying than what had been taken away!

God’s reward to Job for faithfulness to Himself was a greater life than he had before Satan’s attack. God’s reward to us for faithfulness to Him, no matter what is happening in our lives, will be far greater than anything we could imagine. Then we can say with Paul, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). It would be like trying to weigh a feather on the same scales as a battleship!

Trust Him! He knows what is happening, and He will not allow His child to be destroyed!