Job 42 (NASB)
Job’s Confession
1 Then Job answered the Lord and said,
2 “I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
3 ‘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.”
4 ‘Hear, now, and I will speak;
I will ask You, and You instruct me.’
5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You;
6 Therefore I retract,
And I repent in dust and ashes.”
God Displeased with Job’s Friends
7 It came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. 8 Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will [a]accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job.
I wanted you to see this entire dialogue between God and Job so you would understand the context that I’m going to speak out of. Job had suffered extraordinary, and inexplicable losses, and was buried in his own spirit of doubt, confusion, and complaining. He was questioning the goodness of God (which, by the way, grieves Him more than anything else). We may not always have full understanding of all He is up to in our lives, but His goodness should never be on trial.
On top of His own battle with unbelief and anger, he had these friends who were heaping condemnation on him, telling him it had to be his fault that caused God to allow all this painful stuff to happen to him. Job finally came to a place of repentance, and he stopped questioning God, and simply embraced the fact that though he didn’t understand it all, he knew that the God who is good, wanted to do something wonderful with all of this.
God so longs for our confidence in Him, especially in those time when our comprehension fails us. God’s ways are always anointed with His goodness, and kind intentions, but His acts don’t always make sense. When you can come to a place where you simply, through the tears, trust His goodness without understanding His acts, then you’ve transcended from just observing what His hand does, and have captured His heart, which is never to be questioned. At that point you can, like Job say, “I used to hear You with the hearing of my ears, but now my eyes see You,” for who You really are.