Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

I find at least two enduring truths for us as I think through these closing scenes in Job's story. First, forgiveness is worth asking for. If there's something that has come between you and your heavenly Father, why wait at a distance?

When the day of reckoning arrives, God is always fair. He blesses those who have walked with Him. He forgives those who bring their offerings and humble themselves before Him. God restores. God rewards. God heals. God honors Job.

Take special notice of Job's words. He does not reply, "I've got an argument here." On the contrary, He says, "I retract and repent." There's no divine force. There's no threatening rebuke from God.

God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. Perhaps God doesn't explain Himself because knowing and understanding His way may not help us all that much. Stop and ask yourself: Does knowing why really help?

Did you miss something? If you take the time to read the biblical account, you'll see that God gives Job the same title four times: "My servant" (Job 42:7–8). What an honorable title. He had it before the suffering began (Job 1:8), and he has it still.

That's what makes the climax of Job's life so satisfying. This dear man, who never deserved the suffering he endured, is dealt with justly. And those who made his life so miserable weren't overlooked either.

"I've come to the end of my understanding, and I leave it at that. My very existence is Yours, O God. It's Yours to unravel the mystery, to track the labyrinthine ways, to handle the profound, to know the reasons behind the inexplicable events of my life."

Job's response prompts me to think of what this says to our twenty-first-century world. What needed messages it offers to our times! The first: If God's ways are higher than mine, then I bow before Him in submission.

If you take the time to analyze those words, you'll see that Job has three responses. The first is a response of humility. The second is a response of relief. And the third is a response of surrender. That's all God wanted to hear.

When God finally does speak, He answers Job out of a whirlwind. Suddenly, there He is! Wouldn't it have been great for us to have been there? Whoosh! Lightning, loud thunder, mighty winds blowing dark clouds across the heavens.

God is prominent and preeminent. He is majestic in His power, magnificent in His person, and marvelous in His purposes. How refreshing to step back into the shadows of our own insignificance and give full attention to the greatness of our God!

There is a man in our congregation who recently underwent brain surgery. The tumor in the frontal section within his cranium was pushing his brain back and slowly eroding his memory.

Allow me to offer a simple definition of wisdom. Wisdom is looking at life from God's point of view. When we employ wisdom we are viewing life as God sees it. That's why it's so valuable to think God's thoughts.

Reflecting on past blessings gives us reasons to rejoice. Let me urge you who are parents still rearing young children to teach them how to do this by practicing it often. Suppertime is a great opportunity to reflect.

Isn't that closing comment a great line? The wicked man may have more clothes in his closet, but he'll wind up leaving them to us. Remember the materialistic line that is framed around license plates? "He who dies with the most toys wins."

Thinking God's thoughts is our highest goal. That's one of the reasons I'm such a proponent of the discipline of Scripture memorization.

What a thrilling thought! "Bildad, as magnificent as all of these things are, what I've mentioned represents only the fringes of His ways." Isn't "fringes" a great word? The fringes, the outer edges of His ways . . .

What Job lacked here in tact, he made up for in total honesty. Frankly, this was no time for tact. Bildad has been brutal. It's doubtful he would even hear if Job had been soft and diplomatic. Job gets tough! Sores will do that to you.

David, in Psalm 139, makes the appropriate comment, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it" (v. 6). If David lived today, he would write, "This blows my mind."

We could go all the way through this list to the end. There are wrongs, there are failures, and there are injustices. There were robberies and sexual sins and hidden wrongs done in the dark. And where is God? He is permitting it. Why?