The Book of Job has always been a difficult one in more than one way.

By a plain reading, Job is not really that complicated, in the sense that some of Paul’s theological statements are. It is complicated in that it reveals truths about God and self that make us uncomfortable.

We have too easily fallen in to the trap of believing that God is bound by the same parameters with which we are bound, and that He is just a “better” one of us, with a mind and thoughts like ours. Our finite minds can not fathom the thoughts of an infinite God (Isaiah 55:9).

The late Albert Outler (Methodist theologian) once said “God is totally other, and past finding out.”

By this we understand that God is not of this world, He is not one of us, all that we can know about Him is only what He chooses to reveal.

This alone is cause for concern unless we have come to trust Him as Lord and Savior, as did Job in 13:15a.

I believe the thing that most troubles us, Christian and unbeliever alike, is the reality of God’s sovereignty. Defined as “having all power,” it is a woefully insufficient definition when applied to God’s complete authority over all that exists.

“Then the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job, that there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?’” —  Job 1:8 (NKJV)

In a nutshell this verse reveals our fear come to life, and exposes the weakness of our fair-weather faith. I am His, therefore He can do with me as He pleases.

We had much rather believe that “God would never do anything like that” than to trust Him no matter what He does. It is the easiest thing to trust God when all is well, it is quite another to trust Him when all is lost, and the devil is at the door. Job, in all his misery, teaches us just that — God is always trustworthy, even (maybe especially so) in disastrous times.

We see that Satan is limited by God in what he can do to Job. Even Satan is under God’s authority, and may be used by God when He so chooses.

God is the sovereign and only authority. He can be trusted to be faithful to the faithful, according to His will.

Rev. Bobby Thornhill is a retired Methodist preacher.