Forcing Small Answers

Job 42:7

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Are you forcing answers that are too small for the big questions that you have? That happened to me. I’ve had a few seasons of my life, a pretty heavy doubt when it comes to God, and it actually started because I was really good at answering questions about God. But then when I got to where there were questions that I didn’t have the answers to, then I started to struggle. What was happening? I was depending too much on my own ability to answer these questions. But then God worked in my mind, in my heart, and I started to get some pretty good answers to the questions I had. And I started to feel better. But then my later kind of seasons of doubt started to arise. Partly because I started to get this sense that my answers I had come up with were a bit too small. They didn’t fully answer the question. So then I was back to, okay, what do I do now?

But I’ve come to really realize that God doesn’t want us to force answers. There’s something else he would have us do. Where I can see this, now, there’s this interesting part of the story with Job that doesn’t get talked about as much, but it’s really significant. Quick review: Job is a righteous, faithful man. He’s devoted to God. Loves God and he’s blessing these wonderful ways. Then Satan comes before God and God’s like, have you noticed my servant Job? And Satan’s just like, well, it’s because his life is good. And you take these things away, he’s going to curse you and he’s going to turn against you. And so then God allows Satan to inflict him into these different things. Well, actually, it starts with him losing a lot, including his kids, and then allows him to inflict his body and all these terrible things happen, and Job just loses basically everything.

And he has these friends that come and talk to him. And at first they just sit and grieve with him, which is great. But then they start coming up with potential reasons why this happened. And basically the conclusion of most of them is God is just so God wouldn’t allow this to happen if you hadn’t done something wrong, Job. So they basically accused Job of doing bad stuff, and Job maintains his innocence. He’s like, no, I didn’t do anything to deserve this. And there’s this back and forth and back and forth. And some of the time, Job really honors God. But there are other times where he seems to really be questioning God’s justice, too. He’s on this kind of roller coaster of emotions. But then towards the end, we get this really wild picture where God comes to Job and takes Job basically on a virtual tour of the universe and shows Job all these things that are beyond Job’s understanding. Job, do you know how all of this stuff works? No. You don’t. But I do. Job, I a, I’m good at being God. Is basically what God shows Job.

There are all these things in this world you don’t understand how they work, but they work. And you can trust it. I’m working in this too. So that’s kind of the big picture of the story of Job. But here’s the interesting thing is, is in Job 42, after he had spoken to Job, he speaks against Job’s friend Eliphaz, and he says,

“My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

Now Job had said some pretty strong things towards God. And here God says, hey other friends, you didn’t speak right about me like Job did.

So what’s going on there? Well, remember, Job’s friends had reached a conclusion of what they thought must have been happening. They forced answers that were too small. And what Job did instead was Job was brutally honest with God about how he’s feeling, what’s going on? He came to God and he wrestled with God, said some things that are pretty strong, but he didn’t reach the same kind of small conclusions that they did. And it makes me realize that, yes, we have a tendency to try to reach answers that are forced, and it’s probably because we think we should be able to understand God and wrap our heads around these things. Which is really ridiculous when you think about it.

Whenever we realize that we’ve had that tendency to try to wrap our heads around God, we need to lay those sins at the cross, know that we are forgiven. Jesus died for you and rose again. Your guilt is removed. You’re right before God and now you are free to not force too small answers. But to be honest with God about your big questions. He may give you answers, or he may be like he did with Job and say, you know what? This is too big for you. And that’s okay. There may be some things that are beyond you. There may be some answers that he gives you, but don’t force the small stuff. Come and be honest and embrace the forgiveness and new life and the bigness of your big, beautiful, amazing God.