I knew that we could not look at the question of disappointment with God without going to the book of Job. Sure enough chapter 22 takes us there. About a two years ago I found myself there. I had always heard the book of Job was about his fear. The thing Job feared came upon him. Job prayed daily for his kids and made mention that they may have done things that were not pleasing to God and so he interceded on their behalf. I spent 6 months in the book and in MY OPINION the book of Job is not about his fear. I turned my attention to God and how he seemed to taunt the devil to consider Job. In MY OPINION the book of Job is not about God taunting the devil either. Then the case could surely be made for the book being about pain and suffering and loss. All Job's children, seven sons and three daughters gone in a day. Then 7000 sheep, 300 camels. 5000 oxen, 500 donkeys, servants and yes... Job's own health. I can think of no one, I know, experiencing to that degree, in that short of time, such loss.
The first two chapters of Job set the background, all the things I mentioned above. The next 35 chapters are just the opinionated dialogues of five men concerning the problem of pain. They are all trying to figure it out. And that's where most of us live each day. The book of Job can be miss understood to be about trying to figure it out. I read it over and over and that's what stood out. 35 chapters of conversation about Job and his suffering. It finally hit me after about four months of reading and rereading and rereading and each time God would say read it again, you don't get it. Finally, and I can't tell you what was different but it came to me...when did the bible or God become about me? Just as a cake is made with eggs the cake is not just eggs. A cake uses eggs, flour, milk and shortening. Job is not about suffering, it just uses that ingredient in a much bigger picture. Eggs don't get me a cake and suffering doesn't get me the meaning of the book of Job.
God is the central character in the Bible and every story told in it. My initial take of God in chapters one and two was "NO THANK YOU!" I do not want God looking at me and seeing me as righteous and then loosing the devil on me. My take has changed regarding those chapters. They are about God saying, "Don't worry, I'll be with you." The thirty five chapters that follow are distractions. Making a long story short i found that upon reading Job I was constantly faced with the question, where is God when it hurts? The actual focus of my attention should have been... where is Job when it hurts? SELAH (pause and think on this)!
It is MY conclusion that the book of Job is all about faith in God and faith in God is all about relationship with God.
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