Live Like Job - Week 6 (Monday Morning Devotion)
This series, written by Pastor Ricky Jacob, who is serving the Winnebago people of Nebraska, looks at the story of Job and helps us discover how to live a life of faith like him.
Need to start at the beginning? Here's week 1
For thirty-five chapters God is silent. For thirty-five chapters Job cries out. But God? He says nothing.
God finally speaks. In the middle of the storm, God speaks. To the father who holds a rose taken from his son’s coffin, God speaks. To the wife who holds the flag taken from her husband’s casket, God speaks. To the couple with the barren womb and the fervent prayers, God speaks. Our God speaks in the storm and his voice thunders with majesty, power, and authority.
Job 38:1: “Then the Lord [Yahweh] answered Job out of the storm.” This storm has huge thunderclouds, replete with flashes of lightning going back and forth. It’s a massive show of force!
For thirty-five chapters Job is consumed with all kinds of questions. Where is God? Why is this happening? When will this end? How could God do this to me? But the most important question is not when, why, what, or how. It is who. Who is the God behind all of this? And who is the question that is answered in Job 38–41. Instead of an explanation from God, we receive a revelation of God.
“Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). Job doesn’t respond. “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me” (Job 38:3). Job keeps quiet. The tables are turned. Instead of Job questioning God, now God questions Job.
“Then Job answered the Lord: ‘I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer— twice, but I will say no more’” (Job 40:3–5). Job surrenders. He stops pressing for an explanation from God and instead receives a revelation of God.
We don’t have a God who is distant, far off, or disconnected. We have a God who is with us, a God who speaks in the storm and becomes like us in Christ Jesus. Are you broken? He was broken. Are you hurting? He hurt. Do you cry? He cried.
How about us? Well, I can give up on God. Or I can receive the revelation and stop insisting on an explanation. Then I surrender, like Job. I declare my declaration of dependence. And what does that look like? Jesus gives us the words. “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” I dare to pray these words because a revelation of this God beats any explanation, every time. Amen.
This has been Pastor Ricky Jacob of Jesus Our Savior Lutheran Church and preschool, of Winnebago. I close with the words of Good News of Job: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth" [Job 19:25 NIV].