"Real"ize

In the book of Job we find, in my opinion, a terrifying story. Don't misunderstand -- it's a good thing, but it's frightening, just the same.

The story begins with Satan in God's courts. (Get that? Most people don't realize it, but Satan even in his rebellion is still subject to God.) God has a conversation with Satan, in which God brings up "My servant Job" (Job 1:8). (Now, if I were Job, and I heard that, I'd be trying to shush God. "No, no! Don't mention me to Satan! Please!!) It is God, then, who starts all of Job's famous suffering. It is also God who controls it.

Satan decides to show God that Job only trusts God based on God's goodness to Job. God allows this test (He knows the truth), but carefully regulates it (Job 1:12; 2:6). Satan is wrong. "'Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips" (Job 2:10).

The vast majority of the rest of the book is a dialogue between Job and his three "friends". These guys gather around to "console" him, but their "consolation" is by way of affirming beyond any shadow of a doubt that This kind of torment doesn't happen to anyone but the worst of sinners. Job, of course, defends himself against the accusation.

In Job 38, God comes on the scene, and thus begins one of the worst possible Inquisitions of all time: God asking the questions. Have you ever wondered what took God so long? Why didn't He speak up earlier? Why didn't He explain it to Job earlier on? Since God is perfect, and His timing is perfect, I have to assume that He waited for the right moment. What moment?

In Job 31:35, at the end of Job's responses, we read:

"Oh that I had one to hear me!
Behold, here is my signature;
Let the Almighty answer me!"

Now, there are five chapters of dialogue that follow this statement, all from Eliphaz, the youngest friend who hadn't yet expressed his views. But this is the last thing we hear from Job.

I believe that God was waiting for Job to realize the truth. What do I mean by "realize the truth"? I use the term in a specific sense. There is truth out there all the time. Sometimes we know it; sometimes we don't. But sometimes, even when we know it, we don't "realize" it. I mean, we don't make it real to ourselves. Let me give an example by way of illustration. We all know that there is a war in Iraq, and that Americans are dying there. Fine. Truth. But do we realize it? Is it real to you? When you are acquainted with one who is there, or a parent of one of those who die, or one of those who is actually there, then it is no longer abstract truth: you realize it. That which is true externally becomes true internally to you.

What truth was God waiting for Job to realize? Job had a problem with sin. Job knew that. How do we know Job knew that? When we meet Job, he is introduced as one who was "turning away from evil" (Job 1:1). You can't turn from evil if you don't recognize it. And note that it was an ongoing, present tense concept. Further, he regularly sacrificed for his sins and the sins of his family (Job 1:5). Job was not blind to sin. It was "real" to him. But there was sin that, even with his recognition of the truth of it, hadn't been realized. What was that sin? The sin was that of pride. Job believed that, despite his sin problem, he was righteous enough to demand of God an accounting. It was only when Job got to this reality that God was able to step up and respond, both to him and to his misguided friends.

Job gets the message. After several chapters of interrogation by the Most High, Job responds:

"I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask Thee, and do Thou instruct me.' I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:2-6).

Job got it. He got the true nature of his sin. He got the true nature of God. He got the true relationship between the creature and the Creator. He realized his pride and repented. He realized the problem.

What's my point? The point -- the reason I started with the "frightening" statement -- is that this is true for all of us. God will do what God will do to make His children what He wants them to be. With Job it was the loss of his health, family, and belongings. But God will do what He will do. "No purpose of Thine can be thwarted." The author of Hebrews assures us of the same:

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives."

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:5-11).

Are you encountering trials? Are you enduring hardship? Have you lost a loved one? Maybe you're suffering from a broken marriage? Financial difficulties? There are a variety of reasons for these difficulties, but ultimately, to the believer, God is working to help you to realize things. We need to realize, for instance, that God is sufficient, and often the only way to do that is to lack sufficiency on our own. We need to realize that we make people (spouses, family, friends, etc.) into idols, pouring our whole existence into them, and sometimes the only way to realize that is to lose them. We need to realize the secret sins that even we may not see, and sometimes that takes painful surgery on the part of the Master Physician. But ultimately, "afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness". That's something else we don't often realize.