Mom, What Is Your Only Comfort in This Life?
God’s Answer for Job
When our hearts are full of questions and we're asking Why? and How?, so often what we think we want or need is answers to those questions. In reality, the answer that we need is to the question of Who? We need to have our gaze fixed on God—on his greatness, on his goodness, on his sovereignty.
Job stands out as a character in the Bible. He was a father who had suffered significant losses, and yet he goes and he asks God chapter after chapter of questions. He asks, Why? He asks, How long? He asks the whole gamut of questions. And at the end of the book, God responds to Job in a way that we might be surprised by.
God Is Still Good
Katie Faris
God Is Still Good invites women to experience God’s comfort and grace through the sorrows of motherhood and leads them to put their hope in Christ, despite the unexpected trials of life.
I don't know if it's what Job expected or not, but God answers Job with more questions. And each of God's questions for Job redirects his gaze to who God is. It redirects Job's gaze to God as creator and as sustainer. He redirects Job to God as having complete authority and being in complete control over everything that's going on in the whole universe, let alone in Job's life.
And in that example, we see many things. One thing that I take away from that is that Job, despite whatever he was thinking he needed, received from God what he really needed. God showed him more of himself. And after God's done speaking in Job 42, Job says something along these lines: I had heard of you with my ears, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes.
God gave him what he really needed. God showed him more of himself.
Those words despise and repent are related to the word comfort—and it's an unlikely partnering. But there is something beautiful when we are humbled and our gaze is redirected to the Lord and who he is. There's a special grace that happens in that process.
And the same is true for us as moms. When we come to that place where we are able to surrender those questions to the Lord, we, too, like Job, can get to know him better, get to know him for who he really is. And we find that's what we needed all along. We needed to know that there was someone bigger than us, someone who was great, someone who is good, and someone who is in complete control and has understanding even over those things that we don't have understanding of.
Katie Faris is the author of God Is Still Good: Gospel Hope and Comfort for the Unexpected Sorrows of Motherhood.
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