Job 29:1-6 The Untold Story of Job

If you were to say that the book of Job was about why good people suffer, I would have to say that you are only half right. 

Certainly, Job’s sufferings are the main focus of the story.  The devil believed that Job only served God because things went well with him.  If things didn’t go as well, Job would not be such a faithful servant of God.  When that didn’t go as he thought, the devil said that surely Job would turn against God if he was suffering physically. 

When Job did began suffering physically, his first thoughts were, why am I even living?  What’s the point?  Let me die.

But the questions soon turned to God Himself, because, surely, all this is in His control.  He is God.  He can do whatever He wants.  Now why in the world would He do this?  Did I offend Him somehow?  And how?  And what about everybody else?  Why isn’t everybody else suffering too, especially those people he knows of who even defy God by their lives?

But there is another question, one that lies below the surface.

About 4 years ago, I believe I heard God tell me that I would go through something like Job did.  And that I would also go through something like what Peter did, when Jesus said to him: Luke 22:31,32

31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; 32 but I have prayed for you, that your faith doesn’t give out, and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

At that time, I had a golf ball sized tumor on my neck.  I believed, and still believe in healing, but all of a sudden, nothing seemed to be working.  And then I had heart problems, which required a procedure on a heart valve.  Twice.  And then I had lung issues.  And I still have a bunch of unresolved things that they don’t really know what to do about.

I was forced to quit work in 2017, because I couldn’t do the work anymore.  And still can’t.

Before Job went through his ordeal, he had a pretty good life.  He couldn’t speak of any unfulfilled dreams or disappointments as such.

But now.  Read his words:

Job 29:1–6 (NASB95) 1 And Job again took up his discourse and said, 2 “Oh that I were as in months gone by, as in the days when God watched over me; 3 when His lamp shone over my head, and by His light I walked through darkness; 4 as I was in the prime of my days, when the friendship of God was over my tent; 5 when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me; 6 when my steps were bathed in butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!  

Job was now missing his old life.  This thought continues through the next chapter, culminating in Job 30:20: I cry out to You for help, and You don’t answer me; I stood up, and You turned Your attention against me.

When I was forced to quit work and ‘retire’, it was natural to look back on my life and assess it.  I didn’t like a lot of what I saw.  I could identify a significant number of major I don’t want to say disappointments.  That word doesn’t convey the depth of the pain. 

But the question remains, as Job’s did. 

When you are dealing with this idea of God actually getting involved in human lives and having relationships with people, questions soon rise as to what this all looks like or should look like in everyday terms. 

I have neighbors who bought this really expensive new house that replaced one just like mine.  Their kids will grow up much differently than I did or my kids because of the wealth of their parents.  We Christians casually speak of having a personal relationship with God.  We are even His children.

So what difference does that make exactly in our everyday lives?  Should it make any difference?  Will our dreams come true?  Will anything be easier because God is there to help us? 

Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I have seen God do hundreds, thousands of things throughout my life.  Little things that let me know that He’s there.  But then I pray for big things too. 

I pray for nations and peoples throughout the world.  My own country has over 300 million people in it.  When I pray for really big things, does that really make a difference? 

It would be an understatement to say that I expected more of God in my life.  There are things that I have been praying for for years, and I wonder at times if I should continue. 

When I pray for something for years that never happens, what does that mean?  Should I stop?  Am I missing something here?  Don’t tell me that that thing wasn’t really important.  If they aren’t, then nothing is important.  If it just wasn’t God’s will, then what does that say about God’s will, and how will we ever know it?

A big part of my personal devotional life is the admonition: O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is forever.  I say that constantly and mean every word of it, but then I ask God to help me understand what that means, to understand what it means that God is good in the face of human need, mine and those I pray for.

Yes, Job endured incredible physical suffering that was meant to turn him away from God.  Why would God allow or cause such a thing?

But behind that is this other question, actually a series of questions, ones that the rest of us can relate to better: 

When we say that all things work together for good, is that the best good?  What I mean is that I often feel like God will let me go miles in the wrong direction before saying anything.  Is that to make sure I don’t go down that path again? 

I’m getting older.  Is this really the life God planned out for me?  Really?

So this morning, the thought occurred to me that when God said that my life would be like Job’s, it wasn’t really the unexplained, unpleasant bothers of cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and various other unnecessary irritating ailments, but this gap between what we believe and think we know about God and the realities of daily life. 

Maybe you can relate to what I’m saying.  I hope you don’t.  Maybe I just ask too many questions.

Genesis 1:16 “ . . . and the stars.”

I have long found astronomy fascinating, especially when you see the pictures from deep space, and you realize how much color there is among the stars.  It’s not just these little white shining dots you see in the sky.

And then I saw these pictures once that showed a tiny sliver of the night sky and magnified it over and over.  If you could see every single star at one time, you might not see any dark places at all when you look up at the night sky.

Astronomy is also a perfect example of how two people can look at the same thing, have the same information, and reach entirely different conclusions.

Either our world and the entire human race has no significance in the overall picture, like one grain of sand out of all the beaches in the world, or they have infinite significance as the main focus of the infinite God of the universe.

Either we mean nothing or we mean everything.

I find the whole account of stars in the Bible humorous.

In creating the world, the Bible says: Genesis 1:14–16  ¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; ¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars.

Everything you see out there in the night sky, God made to give light on the earth.  Two of these lights are great.  The greater of them is the sun, and the lesser of the two is the moon.  And then at the very end, it says, oh, and the stars.  Some English Bibles say that God made the stars also, but in the original Hebrew text, it’s simply: and the stars. 

Like you buy a secluded ranch in Colorado, and the real estate agent throws in the Rocky Mountains for free.

Now nobody would ever know any of this unless God had specifically told us. 

This is one of the vast limitations of science.  It can describe things in enormous detail, it can predict things, sometimes with incredible accuracy, like what time the sun will rise anywhere in the world at any time in the future, but it often can’t tell you what something is or what it means.

Science can’t tell you what is more important: your neighbor or the Milky Way galaxy.

Science can’t even tell you what a human being is.  Because there are similarities with certain animals, science says that they must be related and somehow one derived from the other.  It can’t tell you that human beings are created in the image of God and are the true center of the universe.

No.  If there is a God, He has to tell us what He is like and what the world is all about.  And thank God, He has.  That is what the Bible is.  Without the Bible, we are like a blind person dropped off in a row boat in the middle of the ocean.