ARE YOU EXPERIENCING a happy and satisfying spiritual life? Are you going through each day enjoying the blessings you expect out of life—food, clothing, shelter, your loved ones around?
Do you have a relationship with God that is solid and dependable? Are you confident in knowing what God will do next in your life?
Are you blessed with close friends who know you well? Are they there when you need them and seem to understand you at the deepest level?
Are you singing—in your heart, at least—and feel that you are singing in tune with God?
When you pray, do you feel a mysterious sense that God is right there, listening to your every word, waiting and willing to reveal the next step in his wonderful plan for your life?
IF YOU ANSWER “YES” to any or all of the questions above, you are a very rare human being, my friend!
Because you’re reading this, I’ll assume that you are at least an occasional Bible reader. Excellent! I would challenge you, however, to find any book in the Bible—or even a single chapter in the Bible—that describes a relationship with God in these terms.
And among the books of the Bible, you will find that the Book of Job describes the life of one Godly man in terms that are, in fact, the total opposite of those in the paragraphs above.
So, we are going to take a walk through that book and struggle, even wrestle, with the situations described, relationships depicted, and statements declared. I do intend to “skate on the edge” in this blog. I will follow the text even when it says (or strongly implies) some very radical things, such as:
- Does God really need us?
- Is God really concerned if we hurt or are heartbroken?
- Does God really care to make his presence known to us?
These questions seem foreign to how we’ve been led to think—either by society or the church itself—at least in the modern day.
In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis refers to the main Christ-figure character, the lion Aslan, by saying, “He is not a tame lion.” Likewise, the Book of Job is not a “tame” book. It’s not a pleasant child’s Sunday school story or a comforting bedtime devotional.
As you read the book, it may feel as if Job—and you, the reader—are being held face down in the dust by a heavy boot of suffering and confusion.
But stay with us. Some answers do become clear in the end.