Job’s story always gets me. I feel so much of the sense that, “This just isn’t right! This guy didn’t deserve this!” And at the same time the sense that, “This is how God works. He is working something eternal and wonderful in us through suffering.”
I don’t claim to know even a fraction of the suffering Job knew. I’ve never had a debilitating illness or disease. I’ve never grieved the death of a child. I’ve never lost all my possessions. But I’ve walked through my own fiery trials and in each of them, mostly daily life stuff, I’ve known the presence of God there with me, assuring me, he is doing something much greater than I can see.
In Jobe 23, Job says basically, “I don’t see where God is, or what he is doing, but he sees me. He knows what I’m going through.”
“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.” – Job 23:10
I may not see what God is doing in my struggles in my marriage and in the hard days as a mom of teenage sons, but the One who created me sees me. He knows the way I take. He knows and He is working all things together for my good to make me like the New Man- Christ!
This is the great joy and aim of every Christian. Greater than our pain is our desire to be made like Jesus! Greater than our trials is our joy in intimately knowing and being known by the Creator of the Universe who bore our sins in his bludgeoned body.
This is the peace beyond understanding that we have. This is the joy unspeakable and full of glory that we experience. This foretaste of knowing that one day, like Job, we will see our Redeemer in our flesh, with our eyes and all wrong will be made right and we’ll dive into the eternity of pleasures forevermore that dwell at God’s right hand.
This is not some ethereal dream. This is not a wish upon a star. This is the promise of the God-Man Christ Jesus who walked on this earth, knows what it’s like to be tempted and tried as I am, died bearing my guilt and shame, rose from the dead emerging as the beginning of a New Creation, a New Man… eternal life for me and everyone who loves him! And he’s put in me his own Spirit, guaranteeing that He will not quite! He will not give up doing this good work he started in me. He will try me, and test me and all so that in the end, I will come out as pure gold. I’ll be just who He’s making me to be.
Oh the riches and the wonder of the ways of our God!
How beautiful
How stunning
How beyond explaining
I’ll just look up tonight before I go to bed and recall, with unspeakable thanks, that I will see you One day Lord Jesus! And you will not destroy, you will embrace me. Oh what hope! What joy. What a Saviour!
Sheila Dougal 