Job 42:1-6
Job Has Heard God Speak
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.”
In the Book of Job we read page after page of dialogue and many words by Job and by his friends...Job is suffering greatly and he tries to figure out through his words, and his friend's words why God is making him suffer or why is God letting him suffer...And Job and his friends both try to do this with their thoughts and their words...We have forty two chapters and many words in the Book of Job discussing this mystery of why God allows good people to suffer...And in the last chapter Job realizes something in what he has been saying with his words...And this realization is only after Job feels the Presence of God...Often in our conversations, one word leads to another and to another, ad infinitum...
Author, Trappist Monk, and Priest Thomas Keating wrote about the words we have for God and what we say about God...Keating wrote, “As St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) taught, whatever we say about God is more unlike God than saying nothing...If we do say something, it can only be a pointer toward the Mystery that can never be articulated in words...All that words can do is point in the direction of the Mystery.”...
Keating's quote made me think of Job, and the Great Mystery of God...Job is pointed in the direction of God, and now has finally met Him...Words about God bring up more Mystery and many more words...There is this poverty in our words as we try to describe God...There is lack in our words as we try to describe Him...God cannot be completely described by words...And then our latest words of God bring only words on more words...God cannot be articulated just into words...God is much, much, much more than words...His Presence is EVERYTHING...