How to get peace
Hey, thanks again for sending in your questions related to our recent sermons. We’re coming to an end of our study of the book of Job. And as you remember, this last weekend we studied when Job really broke through to peace. Even though his circumstances had not changed, he looks back on his suffering, and he says, god, your ways are wonderful. They’re too wonderful for me to know.
So we had a number of questions come in this week, all kind of centering around the same topic, questions like, if I don’t have peace, like, Job, what can I do to get it? Or if I don’t have peace, is it because I have a lack of faith? Is it somehow sinful for me to not have peace if I haven’t kind of broken through to it in the midst of my suffering? And so we appreciate those questions. Very glad you asked them for a chance to clarify and reinforce the message of Scripture and the message of the Bible.
So first I want to say if you’re in a season of suffering, it would be absolutely correct to try to get out of that suffering. You don’t need to sit there and take it. If you have some kind of illness, look for healing. Look for a cure. If someone is harassing you, maybe get authorities involved to relieve this suffering, right?
It’s totally fine to try to get out of suffering. Please do that. Jesus asks in the garden, right? He’s facing crucifixion and torture, and he tells God, can we do it some other way? May this cup pass from me.
He tries to get out of it. It’s okay to try to get out of it. So that’s number one. Please try to avoid suffering if possible, but we all know there’s times when we can’t avoid suffering, and we’re in a season that is painful or dark or uncertain, and we don’t have peace. And so how can we break through to peace when we’re in one of those seasons?
I would just simply say keep wrestling.
Job complains and cries out and laments for 30 something chapters before God even shows up, and then it’s another four before he speaks back to God. If you’re in there and you’re wrestling with God and you’re asking for a different answer and you’re asking for peace and you’re dialoguing with Him, you’re doing great. I think that a breakthrough to peace will happen sometime down the road, but you’re not doing anything sinful if you aren’t there yet. It’s not because of a lack of faith. We would not say that Job has a lack of faith.
God commends him at the beginning of the book, and at the end of the book, he says, be considered my servant Job. And then at the end of the book, he says he rebukes Job’s friends. And he says, Job’s friends have not said what is right about me like Job has. So he commends job at the end of the book. Job’s done great.
He’s given us a great model of wrestling with God. And so if you are wrestling with God, we’d say, keep doing that. I do think a breakthrough is somewhere down the road, but that’s not something that might just click right away. Remember Jesus again in the garden. He is really wrestling.
He’s sweating blood, he’s freaking out and he’s not doing anything wrong. Jesus doesn’t have a lack of faith. Certainly Jesus doesn’t have a lack of faith. So it’s not because you’ve done something wrong or it’s not because you have a lack of faith. That’s not it.
There’s just a process of wrestling and questioning and lamenting that God pulls us through, I think, many times before we get to some type of peaceful breakthrough. So in line with our series of Job for advice, I would just say, keep wrestling. Don’t let go of God. Be like Jacob when God shows up to wrestle with Him and it’s all night long and he won’t let God go right. And then he’s wounded through the experience, but Jacob is but he’s also changed and he becomes Israel.
That process is important. That wrestling, that struggling, that questioning, that lamenting is part of our walk of faith with God. It doesn’t mean you have a lack of faith, but it’s important to go through that sometimes. We need to go through it for a very long time. Job went through it for 30 something chapters.
You might go through it three years and years and years before there’s some kind of peace breakthrough. But as long as you are still engaging with God that you haven’t walked away from Him, you’re not ignoring Him, you’re struggling with Him in it. You’re questioning, you’re lamenting, you’re hoping, you’re praying, you’re wanting, you’re really dialoguing, interacting dynamically with God. As long as you’re doing that, that all the way through. You’re doing great.
You’re doing great. Keep it up. Somewhere down the road, there will be breakthrough. Well, hey, we hope that was helpful. Feel free to send in more questions if that is not clarifying enough.
We always love follow up from all of you. Thanks again and we will see you next time.