An Intimate God

In my sophomore English class, we are beginning a unit on Ancient Eastern Literature, and I am including a short study of the book of Job and the book of Ruth. Today we read Job 38 and 42 in class, and I was struck by some new ideas that were brought up in class. Usually when one thinks about the book of Job, the first thought that comes to mind is the old cliché Sunday School discussion of “Why do bad things happen to good people?” While I have some opinions on that question – primarily pertaining to the fact that “good people” really don’t exist – that was not the basis of our discussion today.

In Job 38, God is responding to Job and his friends’ conversations by pointing out His sovereignty and omnipotence as God over every situation: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” (38:4-7). Interestingly, He responds to their questions with more questions of his own – rhetorical questions that point out His power in a more indirect way. Two things strike me about God’s language here. First, while I may owe this fact primarily to the translation, it seems that God is almost sarcastic in this passage. The “Tell me, if you understand” and “Surely you know!” comments certainly have an edge to them and imply that He might be subtly mocking Job. The word “mock,” however, may be a bit strong, for I don’t think God’s tone here is necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it’s almost humorous that God would choose to address Job in such a “human” manner.

God’s use of rhetorical questions here also seems to be quite effective for His purpose, because He is clearly able to get His point across to Job without coming off as a distant, theistic, vengeful, power-hungry God of wrath. He could have just told Job he was a fool and then gave His own resume of powers and accomplishments, but instead He allowed Job to draw these conclusions himself. Job obviously recognized his own limitations through God’s questions, but God didn’t beat him into that place of humility with a clear-cut tirade on Job’s foolishness. He allowed Job to learn his place as a mortal in a more indirect way.

Although I’ve read these passages many times, something new about them struck me today, and it’s been on my mind ever since. It seems that a God as powerful as the One presented in Job 38 could never be interested in the mere comings and goings of man, much less in the life of one particular individual. And yet in chapter 42, we see that God deals personally with Job’s situation and blesses him specifically according to what he had lost in his earlier trials of chapters 1 and 2. We serve such a personal God! For while He holds the storehouses of hail in his hands, gives orders to the morning, and brings out constellations in their due time, He also cares individually for each human he has created, knowing the intimate details of each of their lives. What an amazing thought.

That idea reminded me of Psalm 139, which begins “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar…” (Psalm 139:1). It’s interesting that this first verb is in the past tense (“have searched”), implying that God already knows David in an intimate way. The descriptions following that opening verse, however, all pertain to David’s physical and tangible life – where he goes, the words on his tongue, the things that he does on a daily basis, etc.

Interestingly, at the end of this psalm David lifts up this final prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). Why does David ask God to search him here, even though he has earlier stated that the Lord “has searched” him already (vs. 1)? I think the answer pertains to how David wants the Lord to search him. In this final verse, David doesn’t want the Lord to stop at his mere physical existence – where he goes, the things he says, etc. – but he wants God to search him from the inside out. “Know my heart,” he prays. Know the very inner fiber of my being. Know me intimately.

It’s an amazing truth that we have a sort of God that will do this very thing; He will search us and know us intimately when we draw near to Him. Although He might be able to command the seas, mark off the dimension of the universe, and scatter lightning in the sky, He also eagerly invites us into His very presence and is called Emmanuel, God with us. I can only respond to such a truth as Job did: “Surely I speak of things I do not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. My ears had heard you, but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42: 4,6).