READ: Job 31
Verses
chosen for meditation: Job 31:35
35 Oh, that I had one to
hear me!
(Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer
me!)
Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!
REFLECT
In
this chapter, Job made a final effort to extricate himself from the false
accusations of his friends and from God’s ‘injustices’, with an oath of innocence.
This oath came in the form of a negative confession in which the accused wished
on himself a curse should he be found guilty of the charges. Job went through
the whole list (lust, dishonesty, abuse of power, rejoicing at an enemy’s
downfall, etc), challenging calamity to befall himself if he just commits one.
That
was how assured Job was in his conduct, stamping the oath with his own
signature. With this, Job wanted vindication, or at least an answer from God. It’s
as if he was saying, “If I didn’t do all these, release me from my misery. If I
did do them, lay the curses on me. Answer me. Anything but silence!” Still, it
was just silence from God. Through the chapters, we see that Job was so agonised,
not only due to the losses, accusations, or unfairness, but because of God’s
silence. Several times he asked, where is God in all this? Why is he not
answering?
Have
you encountered situations where you wondered, if only God answered now, or
explained himself, wouldn’t less people fall out of faith? Wouldn’t less people
misunderstand God? Wouldn’t more people believe? I’ve often wondered the same.
These days, however, I’m challenging the notion of whether people’s faith in God
will come out the better, if God did reply more. We can gain some clues from
the OT books we have read so far. I found that Exodus described the God many
modern Christians crave for: A God involved in human history almost daily, who dispensed
judgement fairly and spoke so that everyone could hear. He even made himself
visible (to Moses). Where is that visibility and clarity now? Before we ask
that, let’s ask first what did having such a visible God lead to?
Scanning
the pages of Joshua and Judges, one would see that even with God’s direct
intervention and justice, the Israelites disintegrated into utter anarchy.
Despite the benefits of the covenant (based on a “fair” system of rewards and punishment),
Israel failed to obey God and meet its terms. The Israelites went to ruin, with
their faith not stronger for it. We learn then that humans seemed incapable of
fulfilling a contract with God, so a new covenant with God was necessary, one
based on forgiveness and grace.
Above
was about God being seen to apply fair justice. What about when God was clear
and not silent? Did God’s clear voice increase the likelihood of obedience? God
told the Israelites not to fight the Amorites. He even explained why. They went
to do it anyway. We see a pattern in the OT accounts: the clarity of God’s will
seem to have a stunting effect on the Israelite’s faith. Why pursue God when he
already revealed himself so clearly? Why step out in faith when God already
guaranteed the results? Clear guidance from God, though serving some purposes, did
not seem to encourage spiritual development in the Israelites. In fact, they eliminated
the need for faith. Clear guidance came at the expanse of freedom, making every
choice a matter of obedience, rather than faith. And the Israelites flunked the
obedience test so badly, that God had to start over with a new generation.
RELATE
I
don’t know why God remains silent. I’m frustrated by God’s silence many times, as
Job was. But in the OT accounts, God’s directness seemed to produce the opposite
of the desired effect. However, such an explanation wouldn’t be satisfactory. To
cope with God’s silence, a kind of faith is required. The kind that God values,
where we still believe even though signs around us show no reason to believe. This
kind of faith, ironically, seems to develop best in times of God’s silence, when
we have no clarity over our testing times.
Paul
Tournier, a Swiss physician and author known for his work in pastoral
counselling, once said, “Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt,
there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.” Faith demands uncertainty
and confusion. It is only through this fog of uncertainty that humans grow in
faith, wrestling and working through problems. Human nature needs problems more
than solutions. I am reminded how, as a math student in school, when faced with
the 1st sign of obstacle, I tend to look up the answers in the back
of the book rather than struggling and working through the questions. Do
Christians expect their spiritual growth to be like that too, looking for answer
keys? We yearn for shortcuts, but they usually lead away from growth, not
towards it.
It
is not easy obviously to attain such a faith, when suffering in real time, when
the God we believe in (want to believe in) shows no signs whatsoever to our
predicament. We yearn to see or hear something, to feel a bit better about our
suffering, or hang on to a faith that’s quickly slipping away. But Jesus said
this to doubting Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
believed.”
This
faith that God asks of us, God did not exempt even himself from it. Whatever atrocities
Job faced, Jesus faced worse and needed that same faith. We cannot fully understand
the mystery of what took place at the cross, but we can be consoled that God would
not put his servants through any test he himself has not endured. This fact is
important to many sufferers. I’ve spoken with many suffering people over the years
and some of them said something like this: “At least, because of Jesus, God
understands how I feel.” Jesus identifies with our sense of loss when God is
silent. For the sake of proper atonement for our sins, God the Father had no
choice but to break off communion with Jesus. In Jesus’ greatest need, God was
silent. That was when Jesus cried out “My God, why have you forsaken me!”
The
apostles freely confessed that their faith rested entirely on what happened on
Easter. Through that ordeal, the disciples, who could only gaze at the cross in
hiding, learned what they failed to learn in 3 years with Jesus: When God seems
absent, he may be the closest of all. When God seems dead, he may be coming
back to life. This 3-day pattern of the resurrection story: tragedy, darkness,
triumph can be applied when we have testing times.
Good
Friday shows that God has not abandoned us to our pain. The evil and sufferings
in our lives are so real and important to God that he shared them and endured
them himself. Easter Sunday shows that, in the end, suffering will not triumph,
and the darkness in the day before (representing God’s silence) is temporary. If
we find our faith being shaken now in God’s silence, it is to prepare us for
the crucial time when our faith would not be shaken. Job still believed when
there was no more reason to believe, and God favoured him for that.
The
issue of pain is dominated by most pages of the book of Job, so it’s easy to
think that the central theme of the book is suffering. But it is not. Instead,
it’s about faith. Job put God on trial, demanding answers, when it really was
Job who was on trial. Hence the point of the book is not asking: where is God
when it hurts? The point of the book is faith. We ought to ask: How is Job responding
when it hurts? How are we responding when it hurts?
REST
I end with a quote from Jürgen Moltmann:
God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.
May this can be a comfort in our pain, a
reminder of God’s love for us, and a hope for the future.
Chris
Chong
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