Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory...

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” Job 42:4

Truthfully, I have always been somewhat disturbed by the Book of Job although I have never read it. It was like a door I really didn’t want to open for fear that I may experience a similar journey. There are so many other books in the Bible to read, right? My reason was simple – the Book of Job scared me as God allowed Satan enormous access to Job’s life to do with what Satan wished. The only exclusion was Satan could not physically harm him. Here was this man who was making conscious decisions to follow the commands of God and live life as he was instructed, yet it wasn’t enough.

In beginning my study of this book I realize that Satan did not attack Job first. God brought Job to the attention of Satan bragging about how righteous this man of God lived his life. Satan was in essence given permission to attack which is disturbing if this fact stood alone. What I have just learned is that, although Job was a good man who lived a blameless and righteous life, he did not know God. He knew of God which motivated him to live upright and moral but didn’t possess a living and intimate fellowship with God.

With this knowledge I can now study the Book of Job and see God for the loving Father I know Him to be in my own life. In His ultimate knowledge, God in part tricked Satan to begin in Job a spiritual journey that would ultimately bring Father and son together in such an irreversible and permanent way. As cunning as Satan is he still falls short when it comes to the knowledge of God.

God desires a living and intimate relationship with each of us as we journey throughout this life. He will be relentless in His pursuit of us calling upon any means for which He can obtain His prize - intimate fellowship with His children. He was going to pursue Job for deeper fellowship and chose to use Satan’s pride to accomplish this feat.

When I look upon the past three years of my life, I can see that God desired a closer relationship with me so He put in place circumstances that would require total dependency on Him. Not that all tragedies are sent from Him but they are permitted by Him to allow us to experience Him in such a way that He becomes the breath for which we take and the pulse for which our hearts beat.

Like Job, at the end of our adversity we simply look in awe to our Lord and say “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”