Job 23
Job replies to Eliphaz, continuing his complaint with a mixture of frustration and confidence. Job is frustrated that he cannot find God anywhere. He looks high and low but cannot perceive God’s presence. But he is confident that, were he to find Him, he could lay out his case and be acquitted. (Job 23:3-7,10)
It is not immediately obvious to me how much of Job’s confidence is faith in God’s justice (and mercy) and how much is (over?) confidence in his own innocence. Job has always maintained his innocence and has been firm in his insistence that he should be acquitted. But he has not been so consistent in his characterization of God. In previous chapters (e.g., chapter 9) Job has cynically seen God as his Adversary, craftily able to prove Job wrong no matter how right Job might be. Here he expresses at least some sense that God would listen and rule in his favor, which is a significant improvement. Yet he also expects God to continue on His current course (i.e., to continue Job’s afflictions), and that terrifies him. (Job 23:13-16)
As to Job’s frustration at not being able to find God, I can relate — and I expect you can, too. How often have you felt like God has abandoned you? Or that He just isn’t listening, that your prayers are for naught? How often have you opened your Bible, hoping for a sip of Living Water, but all is dry, a desert waste? Sometimes it does indeed seem that God is completely absent, and it is hard to understand why He seems to hide Himself. And often the explanations I get for such seasons fall flat, sounding more like Job’s friends than like real Truth. And so, again, I appreciate Job’s voicing of his frustrations. The fact that the Bible honestly faces such human challenges strengthens my faith and helps me through the wilderness.
John mentions Job’s confidence or overconfidence in his own innocence and that he would be vindicated by God if he could get a hearing. But I see something even stronger in verses 10-12: Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have followed in His tracks; I have kept His way without turning aside. I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread. Herein Job seems to express a deep love for God. One wonders how he knows God or who is the God that he knows, since these words may have been written even before Abraham’s time. He goes on from these verses to continue to express his frustration at what he sees as God’s “arbitrary” acts for or against him: He has many such plans. (v. 14b) The word “terrified” shows up in each of the next two verses – I get the sense that Job is fully perplexed at the God that he both loves and fears.
While reading through these passages, I’m trying to put myself in Job’s place – at least emotionally. I too caught the word “terrified” and “terror” in vss. 15 & 16. Job is at a point where he has no control over his physical situation and has no intellectual answer for why he’s in this position. Loss of control and no answer why… I have been there and it is terrifying because at the time, I did not know God nor Jesus as my savior, and I didn’t know what to do (that was the terrifying part). I only knew about God. That too was terrifying because I knew nothing of God’s healing power and love for me – in other words, I had no trust of God.
But for me, this terrifying low point in my life was saving grace. I had nowhere else to turn but to God for help.
I recalled a lot of my past in reading these passages today. Not recalling the past and the mistakes I made in fear or regret or with the still-nagging question “why me??”, but just remembering the journey – who saved me and why He saved me.