Trust Amid The Silence

“Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him.” (Job 35:14 AV)

Interspersed with some erroneous application, Elihu, above the other three, has really sound advice for Job.  The above is no exception.  Job desires answers from God.  Yet, God is to this point, silent.  The LORD has not shared with Job the purpose for his trials.  In fact, He never does.  Elihu rehearses Job’s position in the sovereignty of God compared with the silence of God.  Job stated that he may never hear from God as to why all this is happening, yet, God knows what He is doing.  Judgment is before Him.  He is almighty.  He is all-knowing.  He has a plan and Job’s suffering is part of it.  The plan assertion here is clear.  If God is sovereign, then trust in Him even if He gives you no answer.  The silence of God, although extremely frustrating and exhausting, is no reason to cease trusting in Him.

The element of trust does suggest a lack of all information.  We live by faith all the time.  Even without realizing it, we put a lot of trust in people or things that we cannot see or do not hear from.  I have flown only a couple of times.  As a kid, we flew from Buffalo to Toronto for the sheer experience of it.  Later in life, I flew from Chicago to Ireland and back.  Then I flew from Chicago to Pensacola by way of Houston, TX.  When we stop and think about it, we put a lot of faith in someone we cannot see and barely speaks to us.  In fact, as far as we know, the voice on the intercom could be prerecorded.  Who flies that plane?  Is he or she qualified?  If there is an emergency, does the pilot know how to return safely?  If there is a disturbance on the plane, can the captain maintain control of the craft as well as the passengers?  If something were to go wrong, no one would demand the pilot be in the cabin with his passengers to explain exactly what was going on, his step-by-step plan for safe return, and reassurances there is a reason for it all.  We would want him up in that cockpit with his full attention on the tasks at hand.  The last thing we would want is for him to be overwhelmed with our anxiety and make the situation all that much worse.  We place our lives in his capable hands and trust we will be ok.

Now, God is not a pilot.  He can handle a situation and also commune with us at the same time.  His plan would not come to a disastrous end if He took the time to keep us informed.  But here is the point.  Faith does not need all the answers.  It only needs the answers sufficient to the immediate set of circumstances.  Faith needs those answers so as to know how to respond.  Outside of that, faith needs no more light than God deems necessary.  Job’s frustration was from a lack of information.  He wanted to see the purpose in it all.  His friends took it to mean he was asking God to justify the trials of his life.  That is not what Job was seeking.  If he could simply see his life from God’s point of view, he would welcome the lot in life God had for him.  For Job, it was always about faith.  He had come to expect that if one lives right with God, he will only have the blessing.  What God taught Job was that He was sovereign and whatever He chose to do or allow was His sovereign right to choose.  God does not have to justify Himself to Job so that Job can feel better about the situation.  Job’s problem was faith battling with reason.  Job’s thoughts could not make sense of God’s actions.  That is ok.  That is life.  At that point, Job should have lived by faith.  This is Elihu’s point.  You know God is sovereign and judgment lies with Him.  Even though He is silent, trust Him!