The Goodness of God: The Book of Job

What would cause anyone to look for the goodness of God in a book about suffering? 

If we were to only read through the first two chapters of the book, we would find a man who is noted for fearing God and turning away from evil who loses everything in one day, then spends the next 37 chapters questioning the God we are told he feared.  Why turn to this book to define a good God?  

Because this is what Job called Him.

God’s Goodness Demonstrated in Job

When Job arose, after the loss of all that he loved, he said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there.  The Lord gave and the Lord took away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord”.  Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.”

Job 1:21-22.

How do you acknowledge God’s hand as taking away the good in one breath, then blessing His name in the next?  Maybe the better question is this:  What does Job know and understand about God that I don’t?  

There are so many things I love about the Book of Job. I love that, after seven days and nights of sitting with all of this loss, he opens his mouth with rants, curses his birth then requests to die, and God allows all of it.  I love that, when Job was spewing, he knew enough about God to ask for two things:  that He would not remove His hand (His felt presence), and the fear of Him.  Why, if he knew that God was listening, would Job ask for these two?  Maybe Job knew something we all  need to be reminded of:  you cannot live without the presence of God and the holiness of God, because both are necessary if we are going to know the goodness of God.

Underneath the Translation

After fifteen exhausting chapters of rhetoric between Job and his worthless friends, he exclaims that he feels shriveled up, shattered and without mercy, his spirit broken and hopeless, and God is still silent.  Some will tell you that this exhibits the behavior of a cruel God, but that’s not what Job said about Him.  In Job 19, our lamenter takes a pause from his pitiful state and says this instead:  

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will take His stand on the earth.  Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, and who my eyes will see and not another.  My heart faints within me!  (You’ll understand my reason for the bold letters as you continue to read!).

Does this sound like a man who has given up on the goodness of God?

Where does this confidence and this depth of knowing come from?  I mean, don’t you have to know God in order to say these words about Him?  Job says his heart faints within him at even the thought of this.  Doesn’t this prove that hope in the goodness of God is still sitting at the bottom of his despair?

In Job 23, when Job says God’s hand is heavy, despite his groaning, he still longs to see Him.  He wants to know where to go so that he might find Him and perceive Him.  And then he adds:  but He knows the way I take (verse 10).  I remember reading this somewhere; if you’re floating in the middle of an ocean and you cry out to God for the rescue, is it better that you know where He is, or that He knows where you are?  Job wasn’t frustrated because God couldn’t see him; he despaired because he struggled to see God in the midst of his grief.

Throughout his laments, he acknowledges God’s discipline towards any particular sins he had been guilty of, yet when God speaks to Job (Chapter 38) He does not begin with a list of Job’s mistakes.  He calls out Job’s lack of knowledge and understanding, and then He pellets the space with questions no man could answer:

Have you ever in your life commanded the morning?

Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Where is the way to the dwelling of light?

Has the rain a father?

From whose womb has come the ice?

And after the countless questions, He makes some jaw-dropping statements:

Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity, and clothe yourself with honor and majesty.  Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, and tread down the wicked where they stand.  Hide them in the dust together; bind them in the hidden place.  Then I will confess to you, that your own right hand can save you.

Ouch.

It’s as if God’s final “question” to Job is this:  If your own hand can save you, why are you calling out to Me?

That’s a good question to ask a good God.

When Job repents of his 41 chapters of behavior (Job 42:5-6), he says:  I have heard of You, but now I see You.

Isn’t this where our knowledge meets with understanding?

What we have been told and what we have read about a good God now unites with the grace and faithfulness of the One who can do what we cannot:  save the soul that cannot escape the unanswered longings of the heart.

It was the apostle Peter who wrote some of my favorite words.  Please allow me to use them in a closing prayer:

Though there have been times when I have not seen You, I have loved You.

And in this trial, I cannot see You right now, but I choose to believe in You, and I greatly rejoice with a joy that I can’t even express; one that is full of glory and soul-saving (1 Peter 1:8-9).

How Can We Trust God’s Goodness?

Like Job, we will experience various (different kinds) and many (plural) trials.

We will kick and scream at the God we may not see in that trial, yet chooses to sit with us in our despair with nothing but silence. 

Does this mean He is not good?  

Does this mean He does not care?  

Does this mean that He is cruel?  

I think Job would tell us to wait, to repent, and then continue to believe that your Redeemer lives, that He is still on His throne, and in the end, you will see Him.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.