Feeling like Job!!!

So I'm making my way through Job right now. I read a few chapters this morning and it got me thinking. I observed that Job and his friends spend about 30 chapters or so complaining. They question God and Job laments over ever being born. I noticed that God was not part of the conversation and my immediate questions was, "why?" When God DOES respond, He does not respond by being defensive or giving Job and his friends a point-by-point counter argument, but he points to creation. His main point was that if we cannot even understand the intricacies of his creation, then how are we to understand the ways He chooses to move in our lives?

Sometimes I feel a lot like Job. I was talking to David last week about waling in the desert. I feel like I have been walking in the dessert since June. Between the dying and death of my grandmother, being in Wilmore, and trying to make it through the summer in my house, I felt stranded in the desert. God's silence weighed heavy on me and I struggled to trust that he was walking with me. A new year at Asbury started and here and there God brought me to a stream in the desert and I was able to drink and quench that thirst in my heart. Here it is, the end of October, and I have to admit that maybe now, I am walking somewhere between the promised land and the desert. I can sense that I am slowly making my way out of the desert and I am recognizing that God has carried me through a lot.

So yes, I did feel like Job for a while, wanting to make all the bad stuff go away and to somehow figure out God's ways. That I can never do. I guess in my observations of the book of Job, I began to wonder if when all we can do is lament about being in the desert, does God purposely remain silent? Does He sit there, drumming his fingers and rolling his eyes, wondering when we'll just shut-up and listen? I think that it's quite possible that when we complain instead of being still before the Lord, that God just lets us complain and waits. I've realized that I need to wait. I need to wait and be still and listen. When God places me in the desert, it's because He wants to force me to trust Him. He wants to see if I can just keep my mouth and wait.

Ok God, I get it. I'm waiting. I'm listening.

In His Mercy.