“If I had called, and He had answered me; yet would I not believe that He had hearkened unto my voice.”
(Job 9:16)
The greatest danger in times of suffering, I believe, is for the saint to take his eyes off the Lord, and to hone in on his particular condition. Job had no problem with God’s existence, nor in the fact that He heard and answered prayer; his dilemma was found in not believing God would answer his prayer after hearing it.
It is easy for the little squirts who deem themselves experts, to find fault with the likes of Job. C.I. Scofield has a note on one of Job’s three friends, I have always liked. “Zophar is a religious dogmatist who assumes to know all about God; what God will do in any given case, why He will do it, and all His thoughts about it. Of all forms of dogmatism this is the most irreverent, and least open to reason.”
Jeremiah said, “I sat where they sat.” Until such a time we can echo these words, in fact, I think it best to remain mute. One statement made by the thoughtless to those in the valley that makes me cringe each time I hear it is, “I know how you feel,” when they have absolutely no idea what the sufferer is experiencing. Such statements are generally followed up by mentioning some aspect of prayer, which they know nothing of.
To my knowledge no one in the Bible ever argued the reasonableness or possibility of prayer, and there is no attempt to explain it. I think it wise to just pray and leave the details to God. Even more importantly, we should stay out of our brothers’ and sisters’ prayer life. In spite of Job’s statement in our opening text, I say things worked out for him pretty well, wouldn’t you?
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