It is, of course, very difficult to explain or even describe the deeper reality of God. That is why we find Jesus so many parables to express the fundamental things about salvation, God’s forgiveness and His love towards humans. The book of Job in the Old Testament is a very interesting and revealing one. Although he struggles in the beginning to make any sense of all his untold sufferings and loss of his health, properties and dear ones, soon he realizes that God’s ways are always demanding and yet rewarding.
Job in a puzzle
Job was god-fearing. He relied on God for everything. Yet when trials and tribulations he found it difficult to come out of his den of despair. He could not understand why God allowed all those calamities in his life. He was quite aware that God’s ways are incomprehensible.
Job’s argument with God and God’s retort
At one stage, Job’s argument grew may be beyond tolerance, and God retorted back, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding…when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors.” (Job 38:4-11)
Job realizes God’s work and he is blessed
Thus Job realizes the role of God in every creation, and he finally decides to surrender to God. And that total surrender, though painful to him at the moment, turns out to be greatly rewarding. That is what wee read in the last chapter of Job, how God blessed Job with more than what he had in the beginning. His properties were retuned many-fold and he lived for 140 years to see many generations.
God’s ways are demanding
Many times we find God’s ways are demanding because they go beyond our understanding. God’s ways seem to us demanding naturally because our human nature usually goes in the opposite direction of God’s ways. But if we just stop and reflect, our own past experiences can tell us that His ways are really rewarding.
God’s ways are simple
God’s ways are simple and straightforward. We may tend to think that in order to please God we have to do extraordinary things. Aiming at such efforts, we fail very often to focus on simple things that can easily please God.
Even science struggles hard to understand the riddles of nature
Not only we are baffled by matters of soul or God, but we realize that even the recent scientific developments sometimes go beyond our human understanding. There are many mysteries that make science stumble and struggle. ‘Matter’ is no more just a matter. Einstein proved in the recent times that matter (mass) and energy are inter-convertible and that matter itself is a concentrated form of energy.
God’s ways are really rewarding
Our efforts to understand the mind of God or to fathom into the mysterious ways of God will not always meet with satisfying success. This inability may make it appear that God’s way is demanding. But if we have faith to see His goodness and if we have humility to see His wisdom, then we can find that God’s ways are really rewarding.
What God expects from us is to be a sincere seeker of His ways and our surrender to His plans. God’s ways, though may seem to be demanding, are always rewarding.
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