Out of the Storm

I have been reading the book of Job as part of my assigned Bible reading.  It's a confusing book.  (I've read it multiple times and still don't fully "get it" so don't overanalyze my mini-synopsis from a theological standpoint).

Job has the perfect life: a wife, a host of kids, health, wealth, and a highly regarded godly reputation. Then, in a twist that seems so odd it doesn't seem like it could possibly be a nonfiction story, Satan accuses Job of only loving God because his life has been so richly blessed by God.  God disagrees and the two strike a deal. Satan can attack Job - up to taking his life - to test him.

Job loses everything.  His children all die in a freak accident.  His wealth is stolen away.  His wife tells him to curse God and die.  And then his health is taken from him.  All of this happens in the first handful of chapters.

The rest of the book of Job - save the final chapters - are narratives of Job pouring out his heart to his best friends, who completely botch their theology and their attempt to comfort Job.  They take turns telling him all the things they perceive he did wrong to bring the suffering upon himself.  

It's not an uplifting Bible story.  Certainly not the one your pre-schooler will learn about in Sunday School.  So much of this book FEELS like it does not align with the narrative of the God in the rest of the story of the Bible. The God who creates beauty, loves deeply, redeems the broken and promises to make all things new again doesn't seem to be one who would allow suffering of this level just to prove a point.  The book of Job raises more questions than answers for me and that's okay.  I like serving a God that is so much bigger than me that I can't really fully comprehend all the pieces of who He is.  But I digress...

Thirty-seven long chapters into the story, Job and his friends are done arguing and beating each other up verbally.  They pause to just sit in their sadness.  I bet they wonder where God is in all of this.  I know I would.

Chapter 38 starts with this beautiful phrase.

"Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm."

Friends, even when God is silent...  when we feel ALL ALONE in our suffering... when our friends or spouses say the wrong thing... when death robs us of those we love... when we lose everything financially... when our health is unexpectedly taken from us...  EVEN THEN... we are never alone.

God is with us in our suffering.  He can handle our questions.  Our disbelief.  Our raw emotions.  Our fumbling. Our failures.  He is with us in the storm.  

Sometimes we have to work through all the crap and verbal vomit to come to a place of silence.

Then... the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm.

I am so grateful to serve a God who speaks.  In my suffering.  In the silence.  In the highs and lows of life.  

He speaks.  

He is with me.  

He is with you.  

I am forever grateful.