Job 42:1-6
Job Learns More About God
1 Then Job replied to the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
We have a lifelong paradox in learning and knowing more about God...The idea that we will never fully comprehend God is a profound Truth...As finite beings, our understanding is always limited by our human perspective...However, this does not preclude us from having a genuine and meaningful relationship with God...This is because we are children of God...Like the baby child who loves his mother, we are children of God learning and seeking Him to love Him...And like the baby’s expression of love and the depth of our bond with our parents evolves and grows over time as we age and learn from our experiences...And when we are children of God, whose love will grow as we know more about Him...And these strong emotional attachments and experiences of joy and comfort grow in God’s Presence as it has in our earthly lives, as we journey through this life...And so it is with babies and children who grow and age and mature...
The Bible itself acknowledges this limitation of knowing and our knowledge of Him...Job 42:5 states, "My ears had heard reports of You, but now my eyes have seen You."...Job, despite his profound earthly knowledge and wisdom of God, recognized the incomprehensible nature of the Divine One...Yet, even with our limited understanding, we can have a true and saving knowledge of God...This knowledge is not based solely on intellectual comprehension, but on a personal relationship with Him...Just as Job loved God, and clung to his faith with his relationship with God, whom He did not understand...It is a knowledge that comes through faith, the Holy Spirit's illumination, and personal experiences...
Job's personal encounter with God is a profound moment of revelation and transformation...Before his trials, Job had a theoretical understanding of God...However, it wasn't until he experienced firsthand the vastness of God's Power and Wisdom that his faith deepened...As Job engages in a dialogue with God, he realizes the limitations of his and human understanding...He acknowledges that his previous perspective was limited and that he had spoken presumptuously...This recognition leads to a profound sense of humility and repentance....Job's experience underscores the importance of our personal encounters and experiences with God...While intellectual understanding of God's Word is essential, it is not sufficient...We must also seek to experience God's Presence in our lives through prayer, meditation, and worship...As we draw closer to God, we will be humbled by His greatness and awed by His LOVE, just as Job was...And like Job, we will also gain a deeper understanding of His character and His purposes...
I believe when we reach heaven as eternity continues or progresses or however eternity works, we will have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of God...As you see me struggle with the concept of eternity, because it is inherently complex and beyond my comprehension...I have always been in time...But Eternity is a timeless state, existing outside of my linear understanding of time....In eternity, there is no "before" or "after," no "past" or "future."...While I cannot even try to grasp the nature of eternity, I can understand that it is a state of Perfect and unending existence...In this state, we will have a perfect and eternal relationship with God...We will be like angels as Jesus said...As we dwell in His presence, our knowledge of Him will deepen, but it will never be exhaustive or tiring or boring...On the subject of whether our knowledge of God will progress in eternity, it's important to consider the nature of God's knowledge...God's knowledge is Infinite and Perfect...He knows all things, past, present, and future...And God is always the same, yesterday, today, and forever in Eternity...My understanding of God, however, is limited by my finite mind and years in time...In eternity, we will have a greater capacity to comprehend God's nature and His works, but we will never fully grasp the depths of His Infinite Wisdom...Ultimately, the nature of eternity and Divine Knowledge is a mystery that far surpasses my small human understanding...However, God is faithful...
We can trust that God's LOVE for us is Eternal and that He will continue to reveal Himself to us throughout eternity...As we dwell in His Presence, our knowledge will grow of Him...However, even then, we will never fully comprehend the Infinite Mind and the Heart of God…The more we know of Him, the more we will realize how much we still don't know of His Infinite and Eternalness...The more we will want to know about Him...So, while our earthly understanding of God is limited, it is nonetheless real and significant, just as Job's was...We can know Him personally and experience His LOVE, Grace, and His Power in our lives...And in eternity, we will continue to grow in our knowledge of Him, forever amazed and awed by His Infinite Wisdom and LOVE...