Asking God Questions
God wants us to talk with Him all of the time, and He desires for us to tell Him everything that is on our heart. He is always open to our questions, too. He wants us to have the kind of relationship where we feel free to ask Him about anything because we know He loves us and wants what is best for us. However, there are good questions for God, and there are some questions He may not answer It is not that He doesn't care, but He knows what we need to know and what we don't need to know. All we need to do is to trust God no matter how He answers us. Job was full of questions because He was grieving the loss of everything in his life. (Job7:20) His friends assumed that Job had sinned and that is why God had inflicted so much punishment upon him. Therefore, Job asked God what he had done, if he had sinned. Then, Job wanted to know why God had made him His target, and he had become a burden to God. I believe Job was asking from a sincere heart. He was trusting God, but he was confused. Still, God chose to delay His answer. We need to consider why God did that to Job.
Job's first question was a very good question. In fact, we should ask God that question every day, "Lord, if I have sinned, what I have done to You.?" Sometimes we are aware of our sins, but at other times, we sin in ignorance or unintentionally. Since we, as believers, need to confess our sins to be forgiven and cleansed, so that our sins do not hinder our relationship with God, we should ask God to show us any sins. (I John 1:9) However, in Job's case he did not sin. His pain was inflicted by God for a purpose, but not because of any sins. God can and does do this to us, so we can know Him better as we will see at the end of the book. If He doesn't show us our sins, we know our pain is coming for another reason. Then, like Job, we can ask God why He has made us His target? It is a very legitimate question, but God only answers our why questions on a "need to know" basis. If we don't need to know why, He is silent, and we simply trust that God knows what He is doing, and it is for our good. The best question to ask then is to ask God what we can learn from our pain. God will gladly show us "what", even when He won't show us "why." As I have said, God wants us to trust Him more, and to grow from every experience of life. Therefore, we should ask that kind of "what" question every time we encounter a trial of any kind.
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Tomorrow, I intend to read Job 9-11.