Suffering, Honesty, and Sovereignty

My journey through the Old Testament has landed me in Job this week. Whoa! It's been a tough week of study. I've been in Job before, but this time for some reason God just wanted to take me deeper. I honestly have wrestled with many themes in this book, and have not come up with comprehension or answers to all my questions. But maybe that's the point.

A few things I have learned and want to remember this week are:

• God doesn't ask us to figure things out. He simply asks us to trust Him. In this world of knowledge overload, it is so tempting for me to want answers to everything. Want to figure it all out. From relationships to medical mysteries to just reasons for the way things are... He gives us guidelines (in His Word), but also freedom (gray areas). He guides by his Spirit, but leaves some things for us to learn about in Heaven. I think we can only truly be content in this mess of life when we are just simply trusting and not scrambling for all the answers.
• Be honest in our pain. If there's anything Job did a lot of, it was lament! He was brutally honest with the Lord. He did not like his circumstances, and he was clear about that. He even blamed God at times. I was reminded of something through a song by Amy Grant this week:  "The honest cries of a breaking heart...are better than a Hallelujah sometimes."
• We can think we are going about on the right path, but our eyes are actually half-blinded to the ultimate holiness of our God. This kind of relates to what I just said. So often we think we know it all. Even about God. We know who he is, and based on what he's done in our lives already, we can predict what he might do next or might do in our friends' life. Oh, how I pray my eyes would just be opened! I don't want to pretend I know it all. My little life does not define who God is and what He can do.
• Just love people...and be with them in their suffering. Job's friends had it right in the beginning. They came to him in his time of need. They sat with him--in silence--for 7 days. I thought that was profound. There were no words (at first). Just silence. And probably tears. Suffering is unexplainable. But God is sovereign. So often when someone is suffering we want to do whatever is humanly possible to step in and help that person, or talk it out with them. There certainly may be times for that, but maybe the best thing is to watch and pray with them, to cry with them. When Job's friends did step in and talk, it quickly became a run around of accusations and misrepresentation of the Lord...it just got messy. So maybe it's best (again) not to try to figure it all out, but to acknowledge God is bigger and He is on his throne--no matter what the suffering on this earth may be; nothing changes that.

I just want to live in humility. Who am I? Who am I to try to understand God? To understand his ways--how he gives, how he takes away? What is wisdom?

"...the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to turn from evil is understanding." ~Job 28:28

Thank you, Lord, for teaching little me about these things. I am ever aware that I will be learning more about you all my life. I will never have it all figured out. I pray I will not claim any wisdom that you have not given me...in marriage, in friendships, in parenting these boys, in life in general. May I just be real before you & teach my kids to do the same. I don't know how exactly you want us to pray. But I know you want our hearts. You know me better than I know myself. And everything...everything is under your control!

"I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." ~Job 42:2