First, there was Job. We know for certain God allowed bad stuff to happen to Job. He allowed satan to inflict sickness on Job, to kill Job’s children, and to destroy Job’s wealth – all at the same time. And in all of this, Job never sinned. And in the end, when job seemingly screamed at God for an explanation – Job still did not sin. The quickest and most succinct paraphrase would be something like “God, why did you do this to me? I have followed you completely. Why have you put me through this?”The point I want to make in this is Job questioned God’s actions, and he did not sin. However, God did not answer – to Job’s satisfaction – his question. God said, “I am God. Who are you to question me?” In this first interaction, we see Job question God without sin, and we see God not providing the answer Job wanted.
Second, there was Moses. God came to Moses in the burning bush in the dessert. Let’s look at who Moses was at this time. He was born a Hebrew slave. He grew up in the palace of the Pharaoh himself as the adopted child of Pharaoh’s daughter. At 40 years of age, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. He took action, killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. A few days later, he realized his actions were not secret. Pharaoh was going to kill him now. So, Moses fled into the desert. Here, he meets his soon-to-be wife and her family. He becomes a shepherd in the desert for the next 40 years. Moses is 80 years old at the burning bush. God says “Go free my people from Egypt.” And Moses proceeds to provide excuse after excuse after excuse about why he is unable to perform this action. He pushes it so far he actually makes God angry.
The point I want you to get from this is Moses too questioned God’s action. However, he was doing it with sin. Moses’ questioning doubted God’s power. Moses was afraid, and he was trying to get out of doing this thing. The difference between Moses and Job is God provided direct answers to all of Moses’ questions.
If we take these two stories by themselves, we see the fruitlessness of questioning God. On one hand, he will not answer us. On the other hand, he will answer us, but we will be sinning and making God angry. Who wants to be there?
But there’s another story. It’s the story of Mary. The angel comes to Mary (a teenager at the time) and says, “You will give birth to God.” (My paraphrase) Mary asks, “How can this be since I am a virgin?” Mary questioned God. Uh oh! But God gives her an answer. He explains how she will conceive. And he doesn’t get angry with her as he did with Moses. Why? I think because in the motivation behind the questioning.
Moses questioned because he had doubts. Mary questioned because she was confused. Who had ever heard of someone becoming pregnant as a virgin? A friend of mine (Tom) pointed out there is a huge difference in life-experience to be considered as well. Moses had spent 40 years growing up in the home of Pharaoh – where I am sure there wasn’t a lot of Bible classes and such. Then, he spent 40 years in the desert with Jethro (his father-in-law) and his new wife. Jethro was a God-fearing man, so, we can assume Moses received some education here. Mary, on the other hand, had barely begun to live. She was only a teenager. And she grew up in a Jewish home where she learned about God.
In the end, we see God responding 3 different ways to 3 different people:
1 – Job: Job did not sin, and he was not answered.
2 – Moses: Moses did sin, and he was answered.
3 – Mary: Mary did not sin, and she was answered.
What lesson can we learn from this? There’s probably many, but the one I want to point out is we should not be afraid to talk to God about what he is doing in our lives – good or bad. However, we should also understand that we may be shown the reason why or the how-to’s and such, but then again … we may not be shown or told anything.
In the end, it is for us to remember that God is God, and we are not! He has a plan. He controls it all. He knows why and for what purpose? Our role is simply to obey, follow his leading and get to know him more and more every day.
Go with God,
Donald B
An excellent and thoughtful post.
Agree – very excellent post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts – as I am reading through Job currently and learning a lot about sharing my life and building a closer relationship with God; your post encourages, helps, and confirms my thoughts as well.
God Bless, HL