By Machelle McDowell
February 1, 2024
The book of Job defines the God of the Unknown. This book unfolds an age old question as to why bad things happen to good people. The answer is simple: We serve a God that is in the unknown.
What do I mean by the unknown?
It is in the times when a reason cannot be explained, it is unknown to us as to why we are going through such a time of suffering, but known to God.
Is it is based on unconfessed sin in our lives? Is suffering brought on through the consequences of sin? That is what we think of first when terrible things happen to us. But, rarely do we ever consider assigned suffering to us as a tool to build character in us and bring glorification to God…who wants that, right?
It is in the times when we have no answers. It is in the times when we ask, “Why?”
Job was a model citizen. Not only faithful to God and well respected in the land and shared his blessings with others as mentioned throughout the book.
The book begins by stating that Job is blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. He was considered the “greatest of all the people in the East.”
Job fathered 7 sons and 3 daughters in which he rose every morning and lifted up a burnt offering for each of them! What an example of a Godly father. A prayer warrior that lifted his children up to God each day by name!
He was wealthy and owned livestock beyond measure along with servants to attend to his estate.
So what is the problem, here?
In the book of Job we witness one of the most unfathomable displays of a brutal attack from Satan allowed by God.
A matter of fact, it was God’s idea! What? Job 1:8- The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
Satan was convinced he could break Job! His argument was that God had placed a hedge of protection and blessing around Job and that he had no reason to curse God. So, God gives him permission to attack. And, attack he did. Full blown war! No warning, the only stipulation was that Satan would spare Job’s life.
A situation unknown to Job was about to happen and his life would be turned upside down. He would experience a new meaning for the word, “suffer.” Suffering becomes real! Suffering becomes a spiritual scalpel in Job’s life.
All hell breaks out against him. EVERYTHING he has and loves is taken from him, except for his wife, (which Satan uses later as his own tool). All 10 children are murdered! He is stripped of his wealth, all of it, property and livestock.
Our first inclination is to ask, why? Our first thought is that Job must have some unconfessed sin and God is punishing him in some way. Never do we entertain the thought, Job is a blameless man and God shows him honor in allowing him to suffer for the sake bringing God glory.
Job 1:22- “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”
Satan did not let up he turned up the flames and he attacked Job’s health; he was infected with sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. It is uncertain as to how long job suffered but it must have felt like an eternity.
He was in such pain he cursed the day he was born, but he did not curse the creator that gave him life. He questions why these things are happening to him. It is unknown to him, but he trusts that he serves a God of the unknown and never waivers.
Fast forward- As the story unfolds, his character is attacked over and over and his friends try to convince him he has sinned in some way and is being punished. His own wife tries to convince him to curse God and die.
The people left in his life he thought would share a kind word turn against him.
He shares with his wife in the midst of losing his children, “Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil?” God was behind it all along but not for the purposes everyone thought and accused him of.
Job gets it! He sees the God of the unknown.
I love the end of this book! Job addresses God in chapter 42:
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can bet thwarted.
Who is this that hides council without knowledge?
Therefore have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did no know. “
It wasn’t the brutality Satan poured out upon Job’s life that caused him the most pain but it was that he felt God had abandoned him. He goes as far as to repent for thinking such a thought. Job cursed his own birth through pain and ignorance of the situation. He feels shame for cursing his birth and repents.
Ironically, Job was being honored in a twisted kind of way. His suffering brought honor to God and to himself. What glorifies God is good for us even when we are the vessel being used to survive suffering!
I am definitely not Job and I would like to think I would react in the same brave manner, but my flesh is weak and I can’t even fathom what he encountered! But I can say, I love Job’s God, (my God), and fully trust him to be in my own unknowns!
Job dies a a man who was known to have won a great battle for God’s glory. Job is doubly rewarded for his faithfulness. His fortune is restored. The Lord gives him twice as much as he had to begin with. He is blessed with 7 sons and 3 daughters. His daughters were the most beautiful in the land.
There is much to be said for the Christian that submits their unknown future in the hands of a KNOWN God.