Learning God's Precepts

Recently, we had a death in the family, and in the midst of my brokenness, the Lord led me to read the book of Job and two verses stood out to me

Job 42:5

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 9:33

“Nor is there any mediator between us,
Who may lay his hand on us both.”

 I think about all that Job went through, and all that he suffered, and yet when He saw God his response was “I Repent”. Never in my wildest imaginations would I have thought that after being put through the worst things that could ever happen to a person on earth, that Job’s response would be I repent. Burying one child is hard enough, but burying ten? And his response was still I repent?

It was in this moment that I really came to realize that no matter what we go through in life, no matter the hardships, and the number of questions that come with them. When we meet God, our response will be I repent. No one thinks they “deserve” to bury their children, no one thinks they “deserve” to have loved ones die suddenly and prematurely, no one looks at themselves and concludes that they “deserve” the hardships of life that they are going through. Our prayer is that it never happens to us, and when it’s in the horizon, that God saves us from it. And when it does happen, while we are in the midst of pain that cannot be described, we cannot understand how or why this is happening/happened to us, and this leaves us with more questions than answers.

But at the end of the day, we will realize like Job that “we have uttered what we did not understand, things too wonderful for us, which we did not know.” And we will repent, despite our pain and suffering.

Realization is not the same as understanding though, but I have accepted that these are things too wonderful for me to understand, and I have made peace with it.

Now to the second verse.

This verse emphasizes something that I have always thought before now when reading the book of Job, and it’s that Job needed a mediator to stand before God for him, someone to draw a line for humanity, someone to plead our case and pray for us. Maybe if there was someone there to stay the mouth of the accuser, so that the effects his accusations were limited. Maybe Job’s sufferings would not have been as intense. And this leads me to Peter’s temptation.

And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” Luke 22:31-32

This is Satan again, asking for a Child of God to sift. And even though we don’t have details of the encounter where Satan asked for Peter, when we look into the process of sifting wheat in Jesus’s time, you’ll discover that it was a very rigorous process. Now, when I compare what Job went through with what Peter went through (His denial of Jesus) it doesn’t seem commensurate. But then I remember one great factor that differentiates them both.

Jesus said “But I have prayed for you”.

Jesus praying for us makes all the difference in our sifting. Find rest in this.