“Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come to His seat! I would present my case before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments” (Job 23:3-4, NKJV). Job had lost his children, his wealth and his health, and he wanted a hearing with God to ask why.
His question was not foolish. It is the question anyone in his place would ask. As far as Job could tell, none of it was deserved, and his grief drove him to words that surprise anyone who pictures him as calm and patient throughout:
“After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth… ‘May the day perish on which I was born, and the night in which it was said, “A male child is conceived.”‘” (Job 3:1, 3, NKJV)
His friends offered explanations, mostly poor theology insisting that his suffering must be punishment for hidden sin. Job refused to accept that, and he kept asking God for an answer through chapter after chapter.
He Argued, but Never Dethroned God
Even at his most anguished, Job never let go of his conviction that God had the right to rule. His first response to disaster had set the tone: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21, NKJV). He was brutally honest with God and still acknowledged Him as God.
Answered by a Whirlwind of Questions
When God finally spoke, He did not mention the conversation in heaven that opened the book (Job 1:6-12), which Job never learned about. He gave no reason for the suffering. Instead:
“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: ‘Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.'” (Job 38:1-4, NKJV)
God went on to ask about the boundaries of the sea, the storehouses of snow, the wild donkey, the ostrich and the hawk. None of these questions explained why Job’s children had died. Yet by the end, Job did not respond with frustration:
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6, NKJV)
Job never received his explanation. He met God, and that turned out to be what he needed more.
How Fishermen Treat the Sea
Experienced fishermen rarely talk about controlling the sea. They speak of it with respect and caution. When a storm comes in, the wind shifts and the waves change, and nobody explains the weather system to the man in the boat; he simply feels it and acts. Fishermen learn the sea’s patterns and go out on it anyway, because a man who will not sail until the ocean explains itself will never leave the shore. Trusting a God who does not always explain Himself is similar.
A Mother’s Question
Picture a woman whose only son dies in a road accident. For nearly two years she prays the same question every night: why him, why then, why like that? No answer comes in the form she wants. What changes in the end is her stance towards the silence. She finds she has been given something steadier than an explanation: a settled confidence that God is still good and still present, even while He leaves her question unanswered. She does not get a whirlwind, but she reaches the ground Job reached at the end of his.
Asking Is Not the Problem
This is not a way of dodging hard questions. Job asked relentlessly and even angrily, and God never rebuked him for asking. What God addressed was the assumption behind some of Job’s later speeches, that a creature is owed a full account from the One who laid the earth’s foundations. Bringing our hardest questions to God is not the danger. Refusing to trust Him until He answers them is.
Some questions will stay open until God sets everything right when His kingdom comes in full. Until then, bring Him your honest questions, even the bitter ones. Reject the tidy explanations that well-meaning friends offer, and keep saying with Job, “blessed be the name of the LORD.”
I have written more about trusting God when He does not explain Himself in Yet Will I Trust Him, and about the attitude that makes such trust possible in A Teachable Heart. Both are free to read online or download.
