Tag Archives: job

the Lord God counsels, – thus, speak to me, my Lord from Job 38,

18 May


Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

2 “Who is this that obscures my plans

with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me. 4 “Where were you ….

We do not know how long Job suffered; or sat in ashes; or how long he suffered alone and with his friends. It could have been a week. Or longer.

Job 7:3 states, “I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.”

So, how long? How long did Job wait to hear from his God? In suffering? Are these metaphorical months, or actual ones? We don’t know. Except, we do know that this waiting that whatever the time was, we know it must have seemed an eternity. An eternity of suffering, an eternity of time…
And in a moment, He speaks; the Lord speaks wisdom, “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?”

The Lord’s plans have not been spoken in words to Job; He has spoked though in every specific moment and event, every action and pain of Job’s sitting in time’s ashes.
David, as priest and prophet, sings in Psalm 16: 7 – “I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.”


Here, the Lord’s counsel is defined. All moments, even those of sleep, has the Lord touching and speaking in and to our hearts. How do we know He speaks, counsels?

Because, as David, when we awake praise Him; sing a song to Him; feel and know Him through all he allows, places and acts in our lives. We feel him.


Out of life’s whirlwinds, He speaks, whispers, shouts and moves.

So, we pray,
“Help me not to darken your counsel, your words, movements, acts and seemingly silences, with my questions, my doubts. Help me to hold onto to all you place within and without my heart. Counsel me my Lord.”

Counsel me

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questioning job, answered, reborn -part 1 of 2

6 Feb
Job’s eyes, wide, shut

The Book of Job begins with angels and Satan before God in the heavens. A question comes, ‘Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Our Lord asks, asks a question of which he surely knows the answer. Satan has been probing, roaming, the earth. And he has been watching Job. And then, then, Lord asks Satan another question,
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

What is God saying?
He is saying – Adam fell; Eve fell with him; Cain was overcome, mastered by sin; Abel fell, murder in his innocence; sin roams the earth. Noah’s earth needs a washing, a cleansing. Why?

Sin was in “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time”. ( Genesis 6:5 )

Satan is covering all the earth with evil. His evil. All is touched, all, except for Job.
Job fears the Lord, lovingly. Job shuns, shakes off evil, he belongs to God, wholly, and without a question.
But the Evil One believes that evil begets more, even greater evils. He believes that he can plant questions in ‘the thoughts of the human ( Job’s ) heart.’ And these questions will beget more questions:

  •  does the Lord God truly love me?
  •  why are all these horrible things  happening to me?
  •  why is there suffering, death? here?        why? 
  •  why?

and so, God gives Job over to Satan’s heart, to the Evil One’s thoughts, devices, imaginings. Only for a time and Job’s life is be safe. But his life becomes now one of questions, questions without answers.
Job will need, require an answer.

Tomorrow in part 2 of ‘questioning job,’ we will feel the answer. Feel it with Job.

We will be with Job.

with job.

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