Reflections on the book of Job
Trust is a concept that I thought I understood.
But I didn’t learn about real trust until I believed that I had lost everything, and all I had left was God — if He was still there…
My first few hours in jail were a defining moment for me. It felt like I had nothing. No control. No reputation. No future I could see.
So I reached for the only thing that seemed real.
God.
I held on for dear life.
And ever since then, He has never let go.
There is really no way to learn to trust God until you are drowning.
As long as you can still touch the bottom, as long as your feet can still find footing, you are not trusting — you are balancing. You are managing. You are calculating.
Trust begins when control ends.
Job understood this, though he never understood why.
We are given the first two chapters of his story. We are told about the conversation in heaven. We see the challenge, the permission, the boundaries set by God Himself.
Job never hears any of it.
He never learns that his suffering was not punishment.
He never learns that heaven was watching.
He never learns that his name had been spoken in the throne room of God.
He lives the entire ordeal without the explanation we are given.
And yet he keeps speaking — not perfectly, not politely, not without frustration — but he keeps speaking to God.
That is trust.
We often assume that trust means silence. That faith means calm acceptance. But Job complained. He questioned. He poured out confusion and grief.
He just never walked away.
He complained toward heaven.
There is something deeply comforting in knowing that we are never told why either.
We imagine that if we only understood the hidden mechanics — the spiritual battle, the long-term purpose, the future fruit — we could endure more easily.
But God does not grant us a backstage pass.
He asks us to stay in the story without seeing the script.
And somehow, that is enough.
We cannot ruin our lives beyond God’s ability to redeem them.
We can sin. We can wander. We can wreck our own plans. But we cannot outmaneuver His sovereignty. We cannot sabotage His ultimate purpose.
All of the evil inside of me or surrounding me cannot separate me from the love of God.
He is not reacting to my life. He is weaving it.
As Creator and Sustainer, He does not waste material. Even my greatest failures become thread in His hands.
He sends what I need. If He does not send it, I do not need it.
That statement used to offend me. Now it steadies me.
We are like children trying to audit the calculations of a physicist. A seven-year-old does not question advanced mathematics because he lacks the framework to even understand the problem.
Yet we confidently evaluate how God is running the universe.
Does that make sense?
Trust does not require understanding. It requires proximity.
Job never stopped praying.
He never received the explanation we received.
But he encountered God.
And in the end, that was more than an answer.
God has still never let go.
My life is still a struggle.
I still can’t see the future.
But through it all, I can still have confidence that there is purpose beyond what I can see.
And He is still with me.