I made a friend this year who makes me think really hard. She asks me the difficult questions, reads into my emotions and thoughts, and makes me face things I would normally avoid. This is the type of friend that is hard to have (in the best way possible...), but also the type of friend you wouldn't want to live without.
This friend helped me get through some of the toughest months of my life to date. There were days I made poor decisions. There were days I decided I wanted nothing to do with God. There were days I flat-out decided I was not going to be a Christian anymore. She didn't judge me once. She sat in the silence and hurt with me. She encouraged me. She continued to love me.
This friend and I read Job. I declared that this would mark a new time for me. It marked the starting afresh of my relationship with the Lord. It marked my pursuit after the Lord's heart and his desires for me, and his pursuit after my heart. I learned a lot in this book. Not only that Job was righteous, or that Job went through a lot of hard things, or that Job lost everything, or that he still loved and remained righteous through the hardship. What I really learned is that Job was still human. And humans are not perfect.
Job questioned God. He went through times when all of his friends were against him. He went through times when he had no one to walk with him or encourage him. He doubted, as many (most) of us do. He became frustrated. He lacked understanding of God's purpose for the trials and the pain he endured. He begged to make his case before God, and to prove that he was righteous.
Here's the thing though: Job didn't need to prove anything. God knew he was righteous. God knew the depths of Job's heart. God marked every step in Job's path since before he was born. There was nothing Job could earn from God. Just like you and just like me. God knows my pain. He also knows my potential for indescribable joy. God knows my heartaches, but he also knows the capacity of my heart to love and to feel. God knows that when my life is in a mess, I get frustrated, I get angry, I question, I doubt, I even make some bad decisions. But God also redeems. He redeems all of the disappointments. All of the frustrations. All of the doubts. There is nothing more, or nothing less that I could do to make God love me any differently. And while I constantly fail him, he NEVER fails me. It may seem like he lets my world fall apart into a tornado aftermath without the rainbow after the storm. That's because He does, except there is always a rainbow after His storms. We have to go through fire sometimes, before we are fashioned into gold. God has purposes, and they are always good ones.
