Do you know what it’s like to feel the “unfairness” of life where things don’t work out the way you hope or expect? If you could only come up with some explanation, that would at least help you cope with it – help you hang on to the idea that somehow life really is fair. What do you do when you can’t? Sometimes there isn’t any discernable reason for tragedy.

Job, in his agony, demands an answer from God. “Why?” The amazing thing is that God responds. But God isn’t responding simply to Job’s question. He’s responding to all of us as we wrestle with the same questions. Beginning in chapter 38 God launches into an explanation that lasts 4 chapters. But it isn’t what we would expect. God doesn’t sit down to have a polite cup of tea with Job. Instead he comes to him in a whirlwind. He doesn’t lay out his argument that would bring to light the reasoning of Job’s suffering so that Job can say, “ahhh, NOW I understand!” Instead, God simply says in affect – “I am God and you are not.” In so doing, God exposes the hidden assumptions at the root of Job’s demand. These are the same assumptions that often lie hidden under our own beliefs about God. Just like Job, we need our hidden assumptions exposed if we are to know the true God.

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