A Conversation With Daddy…

Job 38:3 “Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind… “Put on your big boy panties and then we’ll talk!”

Talk about being taken to the woodshed! Where as we use an instrument of pain in punishing and correcting, God used Job’s own complaints and his growing bitterness to achieve a deep and lasting repentance.

Yes, Job was a righteous man and his faith in and relationship with God remained solid and unchanging. But not because he, Job, was strong and reliable but because God IS!

Job 1:8 And God said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning from evil.”

God loved Job! Only Satan would accuse and set out to prove that God (because this wasn’t really about Job) only loved this “human creature” when they were being nice and respectful to God. And… this “human creature only loved God when they were spoiled rotten!

What Satan meant as evil… God used for good! Satan thought he had a twofer… both God and man would hate, despise and turn on each other, when Satan was given permission and access to show them all the truth!

Satan wanted to test this creature in order to destroy him… God allowed the testing, NOT for Satan’s benefit, but because He knew that in the end it would serve His purpose to strengthen and deepen His relationship with Job, His man-child, created in God’s own image at the beginning of the world.

If it depended on Job’s actions and reactions, Satan probably would have won the challenge. Job did great in the first and second test. He gave God the authority and power (which He deserves) over his life and reaffirmed his faith by humbling himself and worshipping God.

Job 1:22 Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God!

Even when Job’s wife encouraged him to give up and “Curse God and die!” in order to stop his suffering, Job preached the truth… “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”

Job 2:10 In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

But then… his FRIENDS came. With friends like these, right? For seven days and seven nights they sat on the ground with him with no one speaking a word to him… they saw that his pain was very great.

Then it all started to head south… NOTE to self… too much sympathy can turn all eyes inward! Empathy will keep one humble but sympathy will begin to demand a fix.

The “brothers” began the discussion that would end in some serious DISCIPLINE and TRAINiNG UP. All of them would indeed have a discussion with Daddy. And all of them would be called to task for the WORDS they spoke. Every one of them in the end had a big plate of “trash talking” to eat!

Whereas Job spoke the truth about God… He does indeed have the power and control and authority over His creation… Job’s friends declared God’s motives and judgements falsely. They focused on God’s judgement of every action and declared that Job could change God by just doing the right thing. Their solution to Job’s problems was in his own hands… confess and obey! They believed God DESERVED our perfect obedience, and He does, but they also believed that God was without compassion and  mercy… He is the Almighty… the JUDGE… the JURY… and the PUNISHER!

Job 42:7 “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.”

So, why was Job taken to the woodshed if he spoke the truth about God? Because, just like all of us, Job, in trying to defend his own honor before his friends, began to believe the lies of the enemy… “You DESERVE better treatment from the God you serve so well!”

Like a snowball rolling down the mountain, a child grumbling about his/her parent’s discipline, will continue to gather more and more evidence of their unfairness and continue to speed toward the final confrontation in which the child will be shown to be completely righteous in his/her condemnation of the parental’s judgement. THEN the TRUTH will SET ME FREE!

We’ve all done (and will do again) what Job did. We have all given in to the bitterness and rebelliousness this sort of tantrum creates. We have all shaken our fist at God and said, “I’ll show You!” We declared in a fit of rage, “You are UNFAIR!” We have cried tears of bitterness and sobbed, “You do not love me or You would not allow this!”

Job evidently kept it up long enough to incur God’s whirlwind… “WHO is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)

Whoa! Dad heard it all and NOW I am in really deep dodo!

No longer shivering with anger at the audacity of letting him suffer, Job is trembling at the power and majesty in the presence of our Almighty God.

Satan thought he could incite God to destroy man. Job thought he could change God and manipulate Him to gain favor in place of suffering. Both imagined that they had power over God.

God knows and declares Himself and does not apologize! Can you hear Him? “I AM!”

And then He says, “Who are you?”

God’s version of a trip to the woodshed…

I can only imagine, that this must have been the ride of Job’s lifetime. It certainly changed his attitude! No longer was he mumbling about the unfairness of his lot in life, he did the 180 degree turn of repentance.

Job 42:1-6 Then Job answered the Lord, and said, “I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted. 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. Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask Thee, and do Thou instruct me. I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”

Now I see Thee… What did Job see?

I think he saw that we are in a relationship with a God who is NOT a thing but a Person who desires and demands a Person to person relationship with the creature He made in His image.

I think Job saw that everything God does is based upon the His perfect purpose.

And I believe that Job realized that, whether he could understand the whys and wherefores of his circumstances, God would never leave him nor forsake him.

Hopefully we can learn from Job, that by having conversations with God instead of with everyone but God, we may avoid our own woodshed moments.

Conversations, not to “instruct” God, but to know God. Conversations with our Daddy who knows us like no other and loves us like no other.

A conversation that starts with…

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved ________, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son to __________ in order to judge _________, but that ____________ might be saved through Him.

God’s final blow to Satan… God is always and forever incited to LOVE not to judge and destroy.

What Satan means as evil, God uses for good… Daddy ALWAYS gets the LAST WORD!

“Have you considered My servant ____________ there is no one like ___________ on the earth”

**All Scripture quoted comes from the “Bible Gateway” app and is the NASB  version of the Bible