But Wait!

Waiting. It is what stood between Job’s calamity and the later chapters of his life. In Job 2:9 we see him at the low point of his life when he has lost everything including his health. To top it off, his wife told him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die (NASB)!” Not exactly encouraging words.

Job experienced tremendous loss and pain. He petitioned God for relief. In the midst of his suffering he certainly had a reason to question God as to why. Yet when the trial continued, he had to endure it all and wait on God.

Waiting for God’s plan to unfold is hard, particularly if we are enduring pain and suffering. We can instinctively know God’s timing is perfect, that His wisdom is superior to ours, but waiting is still hard. Job’s response to his wife is instructive: “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity (2:10)?”

To wait on God is to accept that His plans are superior to ours. It is to humble ourselves before Him in our pain and seek His wisdom. It is to stand firm in God despite what others tell you. In the next verse, 2:11, Job’s friends show up to “sympathize with him and comfort him.” As the chapters unfold from there, we read how his friends give him all sorts of advice to explain his troubles and what he should do to resolve it. Ultimately God rebukes his friends: 

“It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has (42:7).’”

Job shows us that it’s better to adhere to God and not sin with our lips and curse God (2:9). Instead we should praise God with our lips and prayerfully seek His wisdom to guide us through our trials. 

The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. – Job 42:12, NASB