Our Perception or God's?

When I read the book of Job a few months back I was taken by something. As Job was keeping his faith in God-- despite the many losses he endured, his friends blamed him for his issues. They stated that there must be some kind of disobedience to God or some sin in Job that caused all the heartache. Job's friends were basing what they were seeing in the world on what they knew in the world, which was very little.

Job's response points to God being angry or upset with him. He continues to have faith in God, but believes God must be angry with him for some reason. Meanwhile, we (the readers) see the entire picture as it is written. We see that it is Satan who is doing all of these horrible things to Job. The people around him believe one thing and Job believes another and both are wrong.

I found myself wanting to make them see the whole picture as I did, but I could not. In my mind I kept saying, just wait, Job, you will see. And I was getting a bit upset with his friends who thought they knew what was happening and responded in ways that didn't help Job at all. Instead of showing love and understanding they placed blame and expectations.

Many times we think we know what is happening in another person’s life when we really don't have much of anything to go on. Based on our own perception we often get things wrong and this usually leads to someone being hurt. We can be assured of one thing though and that is that God sees the whole picture. He is still God and He continues to work in our lives in ways we nor our friends will fully understand.

The book of Job taught me a lesson on judgment that I will never forget. As it says in I Corinthians 2:11, "No one can know what anyone else is really thinking except that person alone and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own Spirit..."We can hold on to this...God is TRUTH and He knows all.