Living in the realm of a paradox.

Living in the realm of a paradox.
“I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me.”
Job 29-31
We can easily rejoice in our salvation when we see God’s blessing in our lives, but when God seems distant and absent, we begin to question God. We easily embrace faith when God conforms to our perspective, but when He contradicts our expectations, we begin to doubt God. When life seems to contradict what we desire, we are riddled with doubts and despair.
Job has now hit the bottom of the pit. He looks back at life and recounts all the times that God has blessed him for living in obedience to God’s commands. In chapter 29, Job begins to reminisce. He remembers life before the tragedy, when God protected him from adversity and bestowed His friendship and blessings upon him. In the past, people came to the Job, and he was honored by people and provided for those in need. As Job evaluates his life, he can honestly say that he has lived by the law of God and has enjoyed God's blessings. Like Job, we too concluded that when life is going well, we are enjoying the blessing of God for our righteous living. We often live with the assumption that a life without problems is the measure of God’s blessing and engagement in our lives.

But what happens when life turns dark and, instead of blessings, we experience hardship and adversity? What happens when cancer strikes, and instead of healing, we find that it is incurable? Where is God when hardship strikes and we suffer ridicule and turmoil instead of blessings? We affirm God’s friendship when He seems near, but what about when God seems absent? Job believes that God has become cruel, and the hand of God has turned against him (30:21-22).

When God does not conform to our expectations, we begin to doubt God. We identify with Job when he complains that God has turned against him and is acting in ways that Job does not understand. We expect God to bring blessings, but we cannot understand when God instead only brings evil (30:26-30). This becomes the paradox of our faith. We believe that God blesses the righteous and condemns the wicked, but what we do not understand is when it seems as if God is blessing the wicked and condemning the righteous. Job honestly evaluates his life and affirms that he has been faithful in living according to God’s laws, yet now God seems to have turned against him. Thus, he concludes that he has been just, but God has been unfair, and so he begins to question the benefits of living righteously (chapter 31). If he has done everything right and God still judges him, then what is the point of living righteously?

In his final discourse, Job expresses what we often think but rarely speak. He confronts us with the reality that we often do not experience the blessings of obedience, even though we have been faithful in following God's commands. Job and his three friends have nothing more to say. His friends have sought to confront Job with his sin, and Job has asserted his innocence. The only answer now is that either Job is not righteous or God is unfair. But there is a third answer, one that has not been considered either by Job or his friends. The third answer is that God’s purposes are beyond our comprehension, and so He does what we do not understand to accomplish a purpose that we do not consider. It is this answer that now comes from the lips of an unlikely source, which we will discover in tomorrow’s reading.