You know that moment when you first step on a patch of ice and your foot moves in a way you did not intend? What is your reaction to losing the control you took for granted a moment before?

I imagine Job’s three friends are feeling all of those things that people feel in a moment of lost control. I don’t know that there’s anything scarier than that feeling, and I think most of the things that scare us can be boiled down to this: I lost control of the outcome. I could not make what I wanted to happen – happen.

That’s scary. It’s pain and loss and weakness. It’s vulnerability to suffering. Some people are so afraid of suffering that they spend their whole lives building defenses against it. And in the end – they must cross through it anyway. Zophar is completely insulted by the thought.

I must reply
    because I am greatly disturbed.
I’ve had to endure your insults,
    but now my spirit prompts me to reply. (Job 20:2-3)

NO, Job. That’s not the way the world works. Input = Output, it HAS TO. I can control my own destiny. I can do what is right, and God will HAVE to bless me. With the holiness of my actions, I can control him, too. Only the wicked are vulnerable to suffering.

Don’t you realize that from the beginning of time,
    ever since people were first placed on the earth,
the triumph of the wicked has been short lived
    and the joy of the godless has been only temporary?
Though the pride of the godless reaches to the heavens
    and their heads touch the clouds,
yet they will vanish forever,
    thrown away like their own dung.
Those who knew them will ask,
    ‘Where are they?’
They will fade like a dream and not be found.
    They will vanish like a vision in the night. (Job 20:4-8)

“From the beginning of time,” he says. It’s always been this way. It will always be this way. Do not scare me with a God who plays by rules I don’t understand.

We run into a theology here that is easy to slip into: God will act in ways I understand. There is comfort in the familiar, the known, the understood; I easily slip into wanting a God I can understand, too. But do we? Do we really want a God limited by our own understanding? Do I really want a God who always agrees with me? I know how often I am wrong! Don’t I want a God who understands what I do not?

But what if – stay with me – this God who understands what I do not does something I don’t like. Do I still want him? What if he allows me to suffer when I don’t think I deserve it. What if he lets someone who hurt me get away with it. What if a flood doesn’t sweep away their house, and what if they don’t vanish like a nightmare in the morning.

The heavens will reveal their guilt,
    and the earth will testify against them.
A flood will sweep away their house.
    God’s anger will descend on them in torrents.
This is the reward that God gives the wicked.
    It is the inheritance decreed by God. (Job 20:27-29)

What if his understanding is so complex that he inputs things I don’t see to get the output he deems best?

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” -C.S. Lewis

I understand Zophar’s determination to hold onto an understanding of the world that keeps himself in firm and complete control. I share that determination – often. But his determination to not need rescuing – his determination to keep his feet planted firmly beneath him, thank you! – is blinding him to something better than the pressure and responsibility of saving himself. It is blinding him to what God, who understands more than he does, has called best. It is blinding him to dependence on the God who is utterly dependable.

Even when he looks like something else to us.