This month we have had the great privilege to read through the book of Job. First, I want to say that I am very thankful that the Lord included Job in the Bible. There is both mystery and clarity in Job. And the mystery of suffering that I see in Job makes me thankful the Lord included his life in living color for all of us to see. I find that element of mystery in my own suffering. There is an aspect of suffering I cannot explain including the reasons and the varying degrees of it.

I love the words of Oswald Chambers in his book, Christian Disciplines: “The awful problem of suffering continually crops up in the Scriptures, and in life and remains a mystery. From Job until now, and from before Job, the mystery of suffering remains…Perhaps to be able to explain suffering is the clearest indication of never having suffered. Sin, suffering, and sanctification are not problems of the mind, but facts of life—mysteries that awaken all other mysteries until the heart rests in God, and waiting patiently knows ‘He doeth all things well.’ Oh, the unspeakable joy of knowing that God reigns! that He is our Father, and that the clouds are but ‘the dust of His feet’!”

That’s the mystery, what C.S. Lewis calls, “the problem of pain.” But then there is an inescapable clarity in Job. Job was brought to a deep trust in God, a trust he had not known before. This is evident in two cries of faith: “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15). “But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).” After Job’s trial of faith, he was given a new and high view of God, one he had never seen before. When Job saw God as God revealed Himself to him, Job said, “I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance” (Job 42:5). It is an unparalleled experience to be taken into a deeper relationship with God in the midst of a deep time of suffering. There is an intimacy with Him that is found in no other way.

One of my favorite readings in My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chamber speaks of the cry of faith and trust by Job: “God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings. Your earlier life of faith was narrow and intense, settled around a little sun-spot of experience that had as much of sense as of faith in it, full of light and sweetness; then God withdrew His conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith. You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony. Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character has to be cleared in our own minds. Faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life. Much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against every thing that contradicts Him—‘I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.’ “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”—this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.”

May we continue to trust God in the midst of things we cannot explain and rejoice in the clarity of vision we receive of our great and mighty God as we stand firm walking by faith in what He says in His Word. God bless you all as you continue on in this great adventure of knowing Him.