Job 13:20-21
Only grant me two things,
then I will not hide myself from your face:
withdraw your hand far from me,
and let not dread of you terrify me.
Tag: Fear Prohibits Fellowship with God
Job is in a bad situation. He has lost all he has and now his friends are attacking him and telling him his crisis is his fault. In his response, Job starts to show many aspects of his character; some good and some bad. In the above passage we see his fear showing. We all have fear. Fear is a natural emotion to many different catalyst. However, in this case, Job’s fear may be preventing him from having open and free and transparent fellowship with God. He does, via prayer, ask God to remove the two areas that he believers will prevent his coming to God in boldness and confidence.
1). Job wants God to assure that nothing more, worse, than he is currently experiencing will be removed from him. He ask God, “... withdraw your hand far from me.” He does not want God to with draw His hand in care, but Job is asking that God withdraw the pain and suffering he is not experiencing and that the plainly believes God is inflicting upon him:
Job 13:15
Though he slay me, I will hope in him;
yet I will argue my ways to his face.
Job simply wants God to withdraw the pain and he will feel more comfortable approach God.
2). Job also wants God to remove the “dread” Job has for God. This suffering has put Job into a place where he no longer has the “fear of the Lord,” meaning he is in awe and holy reverence for God. He now, due the circumstances, has a fear that is characterized by the word “dread.” Job is in a bad place.
Our lessons to learn here are easy:
1). Circumstances can, if we lose our vision of God, replace our joy in life and faith toward God with dread and silence. God wants fellowship with us. But, we often allow life’s situations to cloud what we know about God and what we desire with God: Fellowship.
2). When we allow fear to replace our faith we lose sight of God’s greatness and His ability to overcome our circumstances. In fact, John the Apostle spoke clearly about this in the following passage:
1 John 4:16-19
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.
When we believe and have faith that God “perfectly” loves us, we can be assured that nothing that happens to us that God doesn’t allow out of that perfect love. We can rejoice in His perfect love. Job is having a crisis of faith because his suffering, like most of us, has put him in a place that has clouded what He knows about God. We should remember the following:
“Don’t doubt in the dark what we believed on in the light.”
This is why at the end of the book of Job we see God speaking about His character. When we remember the character of God we can replace fear with Faith.
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