“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (Ecclesiates 7:8)
We are not to be unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is. (Eph. 5:17) But sometimes we have questions and no answers. We don’t know why there is a delay. We don’t understand why the heavens are as brass. We can’t pinpoint why things turned out as they have. We are perplexed as to what God is up to.
Job was full of questions and God was giving Him no answers. When God finally showed up He said: “Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.” (Job 38:3) God was now the one with all the questions and Job had no answers.
What was God trying to show Job? That sometimes He acts contrary to the way even a righteous person thinks He should act. Instead of showing Himself strong on our behalf, He appears to be asleep. Instead of acting like our friend, He acts like our enemy. He boggles our mind and wants our trust “though He slay us.” (Job 13:15)
The patience of Job entailed him having to wait for God to come through, only learning in the end that the God he worshipped was indeed “very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” (James 5:11) The series of tragedies that befell Job turned his life into a dystopian nightmare and sent his soul into shock. He simply could not process it. What happens to us is bad enough, trying to figure out how it happened can make the matter worse. Unless God gives light we remain in the dark. The sparks of “light” that we or others try to generate only “darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge.” (Job 38:2)
In times like these we do well to heed the word of the Lord to Isaiah:
“Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.” (Isaiah 50:10)
Had Job been guilty of the sins that his friends diagnosed as the cause of his tragedy, he would have done well to repent and get back on the right track with God. But since he was a perfect man, who feared God and hated evil, this was not the proper counsel for his restoration. He simply had to wait on God in the midst of his confusion and darkness, committing his soul into the hands of his good God.
Lean on God, not on your own understanding. Sometimes, the only thing God wants us to know is that He loves us and it will turn out alright in the end.