• Thought on Today's Verse:

After reading Job’s story, many people envy that Job could stand witness for God in the midst of trials and gain His approval and blessings. Maybe someone will ask: Why did Job have such great faith? And why do we easily lose faith in God when we suffer hardships?

From this verse we can learn that God had not revealed Himself to Job, but Job always believed in God’s existence. Job’s belief is sincere.

Concerning Job, God’s words say, “In Job’s ability to fear God without having seen God, we see how much he loved positive things, and how firm and real his faith was. He did not deny the existence of God because God was hidden from him, nor did he lose his faith and forsake God because he had never seen Him. Instead, amid God’s hidden work of ruling all things, he had realized the existence of God, and felt the sovereignty and power of God. He did not give up on being upright because God was hidden, nor did he forsake the way of fearing God and shunning evil because God had never appeared to him. Job had never asked that God openly appear to him to prove His existence, for he had already beheld God’s sovereignty among all things, and he believed that he had gained the blessings and graces that others had not gained. Although God remained hidden to him, Job’s faith in God was never shaken. Thus, he harvested what none other had: God’s approval and God’s blessing.” Job loved positive things. Because he had experienced God’s deeds and known His sovereignty among all things, he could stand witness in the midst of trials. However, when we encounter setbacks, we have no firm faith in God and doubt God’s almightiness and sovereignty so we often suffer failures and become weak. Only if we have true faith in God, will we not fall down in adversity. In fact, no matter whether things go well or bad, they are opportunities for us to know God and strengthen our faith.

Here is another passage of God’s words that can help us know God in life. God says, “Job possessed and pursued these things while being unable to see God or hear the words of God; though he had never seen God, he had come to know the means by which God rules over all things, and he understood the wisdom with which God does so. Though he had never heard the words spoken by God, Job knew that the deeds of rewarding man and taking from man all come from God. Although the years of his life were no different from those of any ordinary person, he did not allow the unremarkableness of his life to affect his knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things, or to affect his following of the way of fearing God and shunning evil. In his eyes, the laws of all things were full of God’s deeds, and God’s sovereignty could be seen in any part of a person’s life. He had not seen God, but he was able to realize that God’s deeds are everywhere, and during his unremarkable time on earth, in every corner of his life he was able to see and realize the extraordinary and wondrous deeds of God, and he could see the wondrous arrangements of God. The hiddenness and silence of God did not hinder Job’s realization of God’s deeds, nor did they affect his knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things. His life was the realization, during his everyday life, of the sovereignty and arrangements of God, who is hidden among all things. In his everyday life he also heard and understood the voice of God’s heart and the words of God, who is silent among all things yet expresses the voice of His heart and His words by governing the laws of all things. You see, then, that if people have the same humanity and pursuit as Job, then they can gain the same realization and knowledge as Job, and can acquire the same understanding and knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things as Job. God had not appeared to Job or spoken to him, but Job was able to be perfect and upright, and to fear God and shun evil. In other words, without God having appeared to or spoken to man, God’s deeds among all things and His sovereignty over all things are sufficient for man to become aware of God’s existence, power, and authority, and God’s power and authority are enough to make man follow the way of fearing God and shunning evil. Since an ordinary man such as Job was able to achieve fear of God and shunning of evil, then every ordinary person who follows God should also be able to. Though these words may sound like logical inference, this does not contravene the laws of things.”