I find it so interesting that Job's cries to the LORD go unmet for 37 chapters of a 42 chapter book.
Job knows that his suffering has been guided by God's hand.
He knows that God has seized every blow:
He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me.
No one restrains (the one who persecutes me).
Job goes on to say:
You don't answer me.
You turn Your attention against me.
You have become cruel to me.
You persecute me, and You dissolve me in a storm.
And yet, Job still stretches out his hand. He still cries out for help in his disaster, even though he has no comfort-no new words-from the Almighty.
Why?
Why doesn't God speak here?
Why doesn't He silence Job's voice and speak fresh words into this new pain?
Perhaps, just maybe, God isn't silent.
Perhaps God is waiting for Job to find his rest in the words He's already spoken; words that are still enough.
Maybe God is simply allowing Job the choice.
When the disaster comes, is it God's responsibility to speak into this new place of suffering for me?
Does He owe me an explanation of the "why" that will certainly ease my pain?
Did He not tell me that I would pass through the fire? The rivers?
Did He not say that I was precious in His sight, honored and loved?
Am I not still?
Did He not promise that He would be with me?
Has He walked away from me now?
He said that He would leave me with peace, give me another Comforter who would be with me forever.
Is He not with me still?
Peter tells me about the trials, the suffering and the refining. When I pass through them, will I expect a new word with each one?
And will I still go to the One who refuses to lift the pain?
Will I wrestle with the silence, thinking the only One sovereign enough to stop the death blows has turned away?
Will I demand an explanation?
Will I wait in anger, fear and worry?
Will I sit in doubt?
Will I not trust the One who knows the place of wisdom and understanding?
Sometimes it seems there is only silence.
Sometimes I speak-I cry out-but it feels like absence is my only company.
But the living, active word is still speaking, and my mind knows this. He promised it would. He spoke it in the present tense; the always.
The old words are still there, and they still have the ability to breath comfort into the dark places of a soul that, for moments, shuts them out. I have known this. I have believed the words. I cannot move away from them now.
I will go before you and make the rough places smooth;
I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through iron bars.
I will give you the treasure of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places, so that you will KNOW that it is I who calls you by name.
And the promise is enough.
