Knowing God

Day three hundred forty-five

This morning I prayed with gratitude for the opportunity that I have to worship God.  It has been an interesting week of scripture study that has opened my eyes to the persecution that some Christians are facing in our world.  I do not fully understand why they have to struggle to worship while I have this freedom, but I trust that God will bless them as they remain faithful. I will continue to pray for them and I pray that the hearts of those who oppress them will be softened.  They will be on my mind as I take the sacrament in my church meetings today.

Job 42

It has been a challenge and a blessing to study the book of Job.  There are times in his story where it is easy to focus on what is happening to Job instead of he why it is happening. The temptation is to focus on the bad things and not search for the good things.  The bad things are easy to find, loss of home, family, health, and reputation are just a few. On the other hand, the good things take effort to find as they are hidden amongst the bad things.  It is a constant search for the goodness of God in the darkest times of Job's life.

So it is a relief when you arrive at chapter 42.  God's blessings on Job are apparent in this chapter. Verse 10 states that the Lord blessed Job with "twice as much as he had before" and verse 12 states that the Lord blessed "the latter end of Job more than his beginning."  We are told that Job's possessions were multiplied, he had sons and beautiful daughters, and he lived a long life (vv 12-16).  These are great blessings.

However, I think it is the relationship that God and Job shared at the end of these trials that is the best blessing that Job receives. Notice what he says to God::

"I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee." (v 2)

 "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee." (v 5)

Job is no longer a person who has just heard about God.  Now he knows God. He knows him better than he did before the trials.  It must have been such a relief to Job to know that his trials had a purpose and that it brought him closer to God. 

God wants the same for us.  He doesn’t just want us to know about Him.  He wants us to know Him. Knowing God is more than just learning about Jesus and religious "stuff".  Christianity is not just about doing “religious” stuff.  It is not about a list of “do’s and don’ts”.  Christianity is about knowing God.  It’s about knowing God through His Son Jesus Christ.

One of the ways that we learn to know God is through our trials. God never answered the questions that Job was asking, those “why” questions. Job didn’t need answers, he needed more of God.  He found more of God through the tough times he experienced.

We get to know God better through the humility that comes in our trials.  There is a built in humiliation that comes with trials.  It’s not the coolest thing in the world to have the world watch as your life falls apart.  Some people allow their hearts to grow harder through tough times, but in Job’s life, his pride fell apart and he humbled himself.  God draws near to hearts that are humble:

"...for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." (1 Pet 5:5)

We get to know God better through the process of suffering itself (Phil 3:7-10).  We find Him better when we endure suffering.  Remember Jesus suffered and when we learn how to endure suffering, we begin to understand the heart of Jesus.

What a great testimony builder studying Job has been for me.  My goal was to search for God and to improve my relationship with Him.  I found Him in every chapter and gained some understanding of how He works in our lives.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this journey of learning to know God.  I am grateful to Job for being the man that he was and enduring his trials, so that I might learn from them and better endure my trials.  I hope that as I apply what I have learned to my own journey that those around me can say the same about me someday.