Coming Face To Face With God

Job is one of the world's best known people. His story has come to us in the Bible in a way that has made him an icon of suffering and wisdom and patience. We know very little about where he lived or when he lived. But we do know that Job had a very real faith in God and that his faith was tested to the limit through the loss of his children, his wealth and his health, and also because of the awkward friends he had. Those friends kept questioning his faith.

With so many difficult things happening to him Job sometimes wondered what on earth God was doing with him and why? He really wished he could take all his questions straight to God and speak to him face to face.

Near the end of the book of Job we are told that such a face to face meeting did take place, and it turned out to be different from what Job thought it would be. God began by questioning Job and showing him just what he is like - very great and wise and astounding in his power in all creation and the universe. In the end Job realised that all his own questions about God came as a result of his ignorance of who God really is.

"I babbled on about things far beyond me", he said. (Job 42:3) (The Message) . Job asked God to forgive his ignorance and we know that God did just that. So the end of Job's story turns out to be a happy one, even better than it was in the beginning.

God never turns away from our questions but he asks us to look at who he is to remind ourselves that God always knows best and care for us more than we can ever realise.