When on your knees is not enough

The following is a section from the book Glorious Ruin by Tullian Tchividjian. The book is about how suffering can actually set you free. This section on Job was eye opening and worth the entire price of the book.

Imagine for a moment that God had given Job the explanation he desired. Let’s say God had come to Job and said; this is what you are going to experience; this is how it will happen to you; but just hold on tight. It won’t last forever, and in the end you will be sanctified; I will be glorified, and the Devil will be defeated. Just know that for thousands of years, My people will be talking about you, Job, so a little bit of pain is worth generations of pleasure. What would Job have ultimately been putting his faith and trust in? What would have been helping him endure? Certainly not God alone. If Job would have been given that explanation, he could have said to himself, Well, if that’s the good that’s going to happen to me, if I’m going to get a double portion of everything I list, then I’ll endure, not for God’s sake, but for mine.

This is the key to God’s silence. God wanted Job to trust Him, come what might. He knew that it was the only way Job would survive his hours of darkness. Explanations, as we said earlier, are a substitute for trust, a red herring at best. God is interested in something much more powerful than any information could ever produce. He is interested in faith. It should come as no surprise then, that when God finally broke His silence; it was not to explain Himself. Quite the opposite in fact.

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:

² “Who is this that questions my wisdom
with such ignorant words?
³ Brace yourself like a man,
because I have some questions for you,
and you must answer them.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
⁵ Who determined its dimensions
and stretched out the surveying line?

(Job 38:1-5)

If you detect a whiff of divine sarcasm, you’re not mistaken. God asked Job a series of questions that, at first glance, almost seem mean. But they were designed to show Job just how small and powerless he really was. God was not doing this for His own benefit. Job may have been on his knees, but his forehead wasn’t to the ground yet. The Lord mercifully put to death Job’s final idol – the idol of explanation. God liberated Job from himself. It was glorious ruin.
Only when we come to the end of ourselves do we come to the beginning of God. This is a common theme in the Bible---- desperation precedes deliverance. Grief precedes glory. The cross precedes the crown. Powerlessness is the beginning of freedom. This is not to say that every cloud had a silver lining, or some such nonsense. That would be minimization.