Have you ever had someone in your life that you first heard about through friends? They would tell you all about this person and you would feel like you already knew them based on what you had heard. You make assumptions, even judgments based on the stories recounted to you. You may decide this person is a hero or that they’re someone to avoid at all costs. You might even warn other people away from this person. And you’ve heard it all through “reliable” sources; rumors, really. But you assume what you’ve heard must be the truth. Later on, however, you have some real life interaction with this person and discover he or she is not at all what you expected. You may leave pleasantly surprised or deeply disturbed.
Job worshiped and revered God all of his life. He lived a good life and followed all the teachings about God, honoring God, and serving him. But a long season of challenge, affliction and hardship changed him. Job is spent. He has argued, wrestled, defended himself, and reconsidered all he knows about God. Once God reveals himself to Job, however, Job realizes he has just known God by rumor. Job is both relieved and disturbed by God’s self-revelation. He is relieved because the long silence of the One he loves is over. He is disturbed because he learns that he didn’t really know God at all.
The primary rumor by which Job has known God is perpetuated by his three friends. That rumor is: If you are blameless and without sin, trouble won’t touch you. Your behavior directly impacts the way your life goes. If things are going wrong for you, it’s because you’ve done something wrong. The prescription for this is: Fix it and everything will turn around. Many of us know intellectually that this isn’t true, yet our hearts insist otherwise. When bad thing happen, we immediately do an inventory and wonder if certain actions or sins have caused our trouble. While poor choices do have their consequences, there is no hard and fast rule that says, “If you’re good, nothing will go wrong for you.” You can change your behavior and the challenge you’re facing may continue anyway. That’s what Job discovered.
But this changed when God revealed himself to Job. Job dropped his false understanding of God and admitted, “I babbled about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head,” (Job 42:3 Msg). Ultimately, God’s self-revelation not only righted Job’s misunderstandings, but also led Job to a place of humility and acceptance. “I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand – from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry – forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor,” (Job 42: 4-6 Msg).
Do you really know God or do you rely on “hearsay” and “crumbs of rumor” about him? The good news is that you can know him intimately and personally. God has revealed himself in a myriad of ways to us. We can know him as the Holy Spirit reveals God to us in Scripture, through other believers, through creation, through the events of our lives. We can know him most clearly through his Son Jesus Christ, who is the very image of the invisible God. It’s important when we face trials like those Job faced that we not rely on misinformation or rumors of God. Like Job, we need to sit with God in the pain and questioning until God clearly reveals himself to us.
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