Job

What is the meaning of faith?

Job 9:10  He does great things that cannot be explained, and awesome deeds that cannot be counted.

Job 38:4  Where were you when I laid the foundation of my earth?  Tell me, since you're so informed!

God blesses a tribal chieftain of outstanding piety and integrity, Job, with such worldly prosperity that he is "the greatest of all the men of the east (1:3). Suddenly, Job suffers a complete reversal of fortune. The victim of a series of great calamities, he is deprived of all his possessions and his children. A repulsive disease covers his body. Three friends, ostensibly coming to comfort Job, insist that his suffering is a punishment for sin, and that therefore his only recourse is to repent. But Job vehemently rejects this solution, affirming his uprightness and his consequent inability to understand his plight.

To me, God's response to Job's 70 questions is stunning! God answers Job's repeated request for a direct explanation of his sufferings, not by a justification of His actions, nor by an immediate solution, but by HIs presentation of Himself in wisdom and power. This is enough for Job; he sees that, God being what He is, there must be a solution, and in this he rests his faith.

Certainty of faith lies not in outward circumstances, nor speculative explanations, but in the encounter of faith in an all-knowing and all-powerful God.

Read Job 38-41 and see how God challenges Job by asking him a series of questions about the natural world, highlighting God's power and wisdom in creation.

Acknowledge God's sovereignty and wisdom.

• Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
• Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
• Who stretched a measuring line across it?
• Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea?
• Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?
• Where does the light reside, and where does darkness dwell?
• Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?
• Does the hawk soar by your wisdom?
• Does the behemoth obey your commands?
• Can you pull up Leviathan with a fishhook?