The Power of Suffering (Part 6)

Despite the questions, Job's response was: 

Job 13:15 "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."

Job 19:25, 26 "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

After all the questioning is finished, the emphasis must change from "me" to "Thee. You must commit your suffering, with all its unanswered questions, into the hands of God.

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

God may reveal some of the purposes in your suffering, but it is possible you will never fully understand it:

Proverbs 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing."

Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us..." 

There are some secret things that belong only to the Lord.  As Job, you may never understand all the purposes of your suffering:
 
Proverbs 20:24 TLB "Since the Lord is directing our steps, why try to understand everything that happens along the way?" 

When God finally talked with Job, He used several examples from nature which Job could not explain. God stressed that if Job could not understand what he saw in the natural world, he certainly could not understand that which he could not see in the spiritual world.  

When Job faces God, it no longer matters that he does not get an answer to his questions about suffering.  He is in the direct presence of God, and that experience leaves no room for anything else.  He is no longer controlled and tormented by human reasoning.  He replaces questions, not with answers, but with faith.

When you come to know God intimately through suffering, you see yourself as you really are.  You no longer know God second-handedly.  That face-to-face encounter with God does what arguments and discussions cannot do.

When Job stood before God, he had no new answers.  He was given no new facts about his suffering.  But he replaced questions with faith. Job has been in the direct presence of God, and that experience leaves no room for questions or doubts.