Devotionals

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Have you ever wanted to say “Praise the Lord for this passage? Praise the Lord, He knows my heart, He hears the secret thoughts I dare not voice, yet reverberate through every fiber of my being?” Such are Job’s words in chapter 17 and 19. They lay a perfect picture of ‘feeling’ in the midst of ‘faithing.’ Job’s stark honesty strikes at my very soul, for even in the midst of ‘seeming darkness,’ it rings with clarion truth.

Often ‘feeling’ and ‘faith’ do battle for possession of a given moment, a desperate circumstance. The honesty of the desperation and despair of feeling makes faith’s declaration that much sweeter, the brilliance of its light that much further reaching.

And here stands Job. Voicing to friends what, at times, I’ve dared only voice, in near silent whispers, to Almighty God, He Whose own voice weaves His truth and promise around my own pain’s whispers.

Can you hear Him, weaving it through yours?
I will never leave you, or forsake you.....Nothing can separate you from My love.

The honesty of Job’s feelings reflects those of so many having faced loss, depression, despair:

“My days are past,
My purposes are broken off,
Even the thoughts of my heart.
They change the night into day....
Where then is my hope.”

These are his ‘feelings’! Birthed in pain, in loss, borne aloft on questions! And though they are at war with the ‘truth’ he knows deep in his being, they are none-the-less real....and he voices them, admitting their presence.

His words here are but a mirror of my own ‘feelings’ at various stages of my journey homeward. Feelings that emerge, that gain voice, despite the faith that under girds me.

Job stands real with God. He doesn’t fear to be open, to question, to give voice to his struggle. To admit that faith and feeling are not always mirror images of each other. It is from this honesty that faith takes wing and flies:

“Oh, that my words were written!
Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!
That they were engraved on a rock
With an iron pen and lead, forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!”

Job’s circumstances haven’t changed...his pain remains, clinging to him, surrounding him with the knowledge of his loss. But Job doesn’t rest there. Once admitted, Job rests his hope on a firm foundation. He rests in a hope he knows he will yet see! Even if he doesn’t ‘feel’ it at the moment, it is the sole reality on which he chooses to stand!

Faith, not feeling, gained possession of the moment, though for a time they co-existed. Such is life. Here in lies honesty. Here’s where faith takes flight and soars.




© 30 June 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

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