Interpreting God

The Book of Job offers us an intriguing story of a man in immense suffering. His well-intentioned friends are offering him all the advice any human could possibly handle, all while God remains silent. Chapters and chapters of these supposed friends jabbering on and on with all of their made-up interpretations of God’s actions, all the while God is listening in silence. Job's friends interpreted the silence of God as a sign that Job must have committed a significant sin, leading them to offer lengthy speeches accusing him of hidden wrongdoing, essentially trying to explain God's silence as a form of punishment. However, their interpretations were later revealed to be incorrect by God himself, who did not take kindly to their assumptions. The next several chapters are God starkly and soberingly reminding Job and his friends just how all-knowing, all-powerful, and wholly majestic He is, which leaves Job with one conclusion; “....I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” Then God turns to these unhelpful friends and says, “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right.” 

Throughout the whole story, we watch in wonder as this good man goes through severe loss, sickness, and devastation. We see him being crushed into dust, then dazed in grief. He was in tornadic disorientation and disillusionment, while God remained silent. But Job would not walk away. He also didn’t pretend like everything was o.k. He was wounded on every possible level, and all he could do was crumble under the weight of unbearable pain, as he listened to his friends try to interpret God. Denial was not a luxury he allowed himself. There was no escaping the trauma that swarmed him. He was shell-shocked and confused, he was angry and wished he had never been born. He yelled at God and expressed his pain honestly, yet he would not curse God and leave. 

When God finally spoke, he set Job straight by unveiling the universe piece by piece. He spent chapters and chapters revealing to Job all that he didn’t know, couldn’t know, and would never understand. But He still said that His servant Job did what was right. He didn’t condemn him for his anger, his confusion, or his pain. It seems to me that confusion and lack of understanding, with the corresponding emotions, aren’t a problem for God.   But He didn’t take kindly to the friends drawing shallow conclusions with wise-sounding and presumptuous explanations on God’s behalf. This is very convicting in a world where we push away confusion as quickly as possible, while often, arrogantly drawing false conclusions in order to feel like we’re in control. The religious friends of Job presumed to know what they didn’t truly know about God’s motives and intentions. They interpreted God incorrectly and He didn’t like it.  

I feel compassion for Jobs' friends, probably because I’ve been in their shoes and said some very similar things. Things that sounded wise to my own ears, until God pointed them out and called them foolish and ignorant. I have confidently interpreted God only to find out how terribly wrong I was, more times than I want to admit. Just as the disciples were utterly confused when Jesus told them to “eat my flesh” we will regularly find ourselves befuddled over perceived actions or inactions of God.

So my question is this; can we learn to remain in confusion, rejecting denial or oversimplified shallow explanations, while still remaining in the conversation? What does it require of us to experience God’s silence without offense rising in our hearts? Or refuse to walk away when others claim God has abandoned us? Or hear something downright terrifying from the lips of Jesus but trust Him anyway? This is not simple faith. This is gut-wrenching, nail-biting, heart-sinking determination to trust when nothing makes sense. This is the courageous willingness to sit in confusion while refusing to pretend that you know what you don’t know. This is the utter rejection of the arrogance of presumption, assumption, and overconfidence. This is the stuff that destroys reputations because it causes us to remain silent when everyone wants us to have something profound to say. It’s also the logic-defying passion to know Him more than understand Him. It’s a rejection of the kind of wisdom that gets you on stages and in Christian spotlights while grabbing hold of a much deeper wisdom that finds peace laying at His feet while being clothed with a million doubts and unanswerable questions. There’s nothing simple about it.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one has dared to wish for

 may for once spring clear

without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

but this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

 streaming through widening channels

into the open sea.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of a Monastic Life, I,12