How God Expresses His Love for UsSample

God’s Silent Opportunity

God’s Story

Zophar has listened to his friends and to Job. And he has some thoughts on Job’s predicament too.

Zophar harshly rebukes Job for having the audacity to speak so candidly to God. He wishes that God would set Job straight for his sinful insolence. If Job will just repent and reach out to God, all will be well again.

Job responds to Zophar, baffled that none of his friends believe or understand him. He laments how easy it is for them to blame him when their lives are easy. Job knows how mighty God is — that has never been in question. What Job wants is an explanation. Frustrated, Job wishes his friends would be silent. It would be their greatest act of wisdom.

Job takes his case to God; he would like two things from him. One — Job wants God to stop afflicting him. And two — Job would like God to speak with him and tell him why he is suffering.

The King’s Heart

“Why do you hide your face?” Job groaned in his agony (Job 13:24). But God didn’t answer. God’s silence was torturous.

God was well aware of the answers to Job’s questions. But he deliberately chose not to speak.

God doesn’t always respond when we want him to. In those situations, as it was with Job, he is looking for us to throw the weight of our hearts on what we know to be true about him: He is good. In his silence, he is giving us space to let our trust in him take hold and even grow stronger.

In human relationships there are often multiple ways to interpret a situation. An unreturned phone call can mean that a person is busy or that a person is being spitefully mean. In those moments we must choose to trust in what we know about that person — their character, their heart.

With God, where we aren’t all-knowing and he is, where we might not ever get explanations for the whys behind situations, it is even more crucial that we tenaciously fight to trust God’s goodness despite our lack of understanding. Because no matter what the situation, God is always working for good. Always. Many times we’ll see that in hindsight. But God will silently give us opportunities — as he did with Job — to trust his heart even when we don’t have the light of understanding. And it is deeply precious to him when we do.

Insight

Some schools of thought have implied that Job is a fictional person in a fictional story. But Ezekiel 14:12 – 20 and James 5:11 testify that Job was a historical person.