LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

"Wisdom and strength belong to God;
counsel and understanding are His." (Job 12:13 HCSB)

Why?

It's the nagging question. It's the burr in our saddle, the pebble in our shoe, the mosquito buzzing in our ear. We never can seem to escape it. It's the elephant in the room.

It was Job's question--and how can we blame him? He had been a man devoted to God--one of the best ever--and it seemed God had abandoned him. Have you ever felt that way?

We don't like to acknowledge such thoughts. We do our best to avoid the dog of doubt nipping at our heels. We hear it barking, but do our best to ignore it. Our deep fear is that we will discover it isn't a bothersome chihuahua, but is actually a lion that will devour us with despair!

For Job, let's face it, that's what it had become. This consuming question, "Why?" was a ravenous roar--and there was nowhere to run in the dense jungle of his depression.

Why? Why? Why? Like a drumbeat of doom it echoes ever louder in the mind.

Why does a drunk ram his car into a family van--the drunk staggers away from the wreck unharmed, while a little child is dead in the mangled wreckage? Why do families grieve still over Ron and Nicole, who were carved up like meat in a butcher's shop, left to die in a pool of blood, while O.J. walks away smiling smugly? Why is a baby stillborn to loving parents who prayed for that child? Why does a godly, young man, with so much potential, die as a result of a horrible accident--despite the prayers of many who begged God for healing? Why does God allow an obscure old pastor, who has served God fervently all his life, to wither away in a dirty nursing home alone, while some smiling, young tele-evangelist basks in celebrity, bathed in luxury whose preaching doesn't hold a thimbleful of Gospel? Why?

It is asked thousands, perhaps millions of times everyday.

Job asked.

His friends answered.

Eliphaz answers from experience. He says,

"A word was brought to me in secret;
my ears caught a whisper of it.
Among unsettling thoughts from visions in the night,
when deep sleep descends on men,
fear and trembling came over me
and made all my bones shake.
A wind passed by me,
and I shuddered with fear.
[A figure] stood there,
but I could not recognize its appearance;
a form loomed before my eyes.
I heard a quiet voice:
'Can a person be more righteous than God,
or a man more pure than his Maker?' " (Job 4:12-17 HCSB)

This mystical encounter had provided the answer. Job was suffering because he was a sinner. But, Eliphaz was wrong. Experience is a very subjective thing. We are warned that the angel that appears may not be sent from God, but may be Satan in disguise (see 2 Cor.11:13-15). We are warned to "test the spirits, whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1). If the subjective experience cannot be validated by objective truth, it must be rejected--no matter how emotionally enticing it sounds.

A man grew up in a house near a train station. Everyday, he would hear the train whistle sound and then the locomotive would begin to pull the cars down the tracks. In his experience, the sound always preceded the movement. He concluded that the whistle was what powered the engine.

The second "expert" answers from tradition. Bildad states,

"For ask the previous generation,
and pay attention to what their fathers discovered,
since we were [born only] yesterday and know nothing.
Our days on earth are but a shadow.
Will they not teach you and tell you
and speak from their understanding?" (Job 8:8-10 HCSB)

Traditions are handed down from one generation to the next. Some of the traditions may be true but they are woefully inadequate as the measure of truth.

A newly married couple were about to enjoy their first meal together in their modest little apartment. She wanted it to be memorable. Her husband watched and began to salivate as she placed a delicious ham on the counter and got out the pan to cook it. His expression quickly gave way to horror, as he saw her take a knife and cut off the ham hock and pitch it in the trash can! "What are you doing? That's good meat you're throwing away!" Her answer, "Mother always did this." He couldn't wait until his next visit to the in-laws to ask her mother why she cut off and threw away the ham hock. His mother-in-law answered, "My Mom always did." The mystery deepened. Eventually, at a family reunion, the young man was able to ask the old cook about this puzzling tradition. "Oh, I only had one pan to cook the ham in and it was too small to hold the whole thing."

A third expert shares with Job from reason. Intellect can furnish the answer according to Zophar. Here is his hypothesis,

"Should this stream of words go unanswered
and such a talker be acquitted?
Should your babbling put others to silence,
so that you can keep on ridiculing
with no one to humiliate you?
You have said, 'My teaching is sound,
and I am pure in Your sight.'
But if only God would speak
and declare His case against you,
He would show you the secrets of wisdom,
for true wisdom has two sides.
Know then that God has chosen to overlook some of your sin." (Job 11:2-6 HCSB)

Unlike the brilliant Zophar, Job is like "a stupid man" (Job 11:12). This "friend" sees Job's complaint as empty talk, ill-informed, lacking logic. He needs to learn, face the facts, examine the facets of the issue and he will solve the puzzle.

The problem is that we don't always have all the facts, and we take the facts we have and reason to the wrong conclusion. That's why Zophar deduced that Job was responsible for his suffering. Yet, that was patently false.

Three blind men were asked to describe an elephant. One grabbed the elephant's leg and said, "An elephant looks like a tree trunk." The second one felt the elephant's ear and argued, "No, the elephant looks like a giant fan." The third rubbed his hands up and down the elephant's trunk and dogmatically stated, "You are both wrong! The elephant looks like a snake." They had facts, but their deductions were incorrect.

Job knows where to look for answers--to look to God and divine revelation. "Wisdom and strength belong to God; counsel and understanding are His." (Job 12:13 HCSB) There is the one true source of wisdom. While it is true that Job didn't have many answers, at least he knew where to look. We, having this book about Job, and given these insights, have even more answers--not all we want, but all we need.

Admittedly we will say with Paul, "For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12 HCSB). There is still some mystery about the "why" question of suffering. We'll understand it better, bye and bye. But, let not the mystery of the why override the ministry of the Word. What we do now know for certain strengthens our faith to face what we don't yet know.


[Thanks to Ralph Neighbor, Jr. who first exposed me to these concepts nearly three decades ago in "The Survival Kit for New Christians."]