In Job the last 10 mornings. Came to Ch 23 today. My heart was held hostage once again by his agonizing confessions: “If I go east, He is not there & if I go west, I cannot perceive Him. When He is at work to the north, I cannot see Him; when He turns south, I cannot find Him.”->
Haven’t most of us met this agony? We who’ve taken this tumultuous trek with God where we walk by faith and not by sight? “I’ve known Him! Heard Him! Felt Him! We’ve been close! He’s been more real to me than any flesh & blood! But for the life of me, I cannot find Him anywhere!”
I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced anything more painful than a season when I could not sense His presence at all & everywhere I looked, He seemed to hide from me. Strangely, it was not a season of sin. I’ve always found Him them. Always present, convicting me to repentance.
The dark night of the soul. When it seemed God Himself had reached out His hand & pulled the string on that one bare flickering lightbulb in my closet of despair and the Light of the world had left me shivering in the dark. I can hardly recount it without trembling even now.
But Job didn’t stop there in 23:9. Verse 10->
“Yet He knows the way that I take.”
Translation: I have utterly no idea where God is but He knows where I am.
Yes, suffering wanderer, feeling your way in the dark, He does indeed. He has not lost you. And YOU have not lost Him.
“Yet He knows the way that I take.”
Translation: I have utterly no idea where God is but He knows where I am.
Yes, suffering wanderer, feeling your way in the dark, He does indeed. He has not lost you. And YOU have not lost Him.
V.10b “And when He has tested me, I will emerge as pure gold.”Yes, you will. Because He will see to it. He will prove you genuine. He knows something about you that you don’t even know about yourself. He knows that, there inside of you where His Spirit hides, is a faithful human.
