Job 22
This chapter commences with Job's friend Eliphaz asking whether man can be profitable or of any benefit to God, before launching into a scathing attack on Job.
Today I seemed to particularly notice the words in verse 26, and especially the second part,
'For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God'.
Eliphaz has been speaking of Job's need to repent and return to God and is now describing the rewards of doing so.
It brought a picture to my mind of a child gazing into the face of its parent with complete trust, safe in the knowledge of the parent's love and care for it.
When we look into the face and eyes of a loved one we feel the freedom with which we can gaze at them - we can notice every little thing about them - we can draw strength from their smiles of love and our mood can be lifted.
How much more when we lift up our face unto God who is everything we can ever need, and draw strength from him!
Of course, we are not literally looking at the physical face of God, but we may literally lift our own face as we look up to the heavens, or we lift up our thoughts and hearts in prayer. And we see God's face through his words in the Bible, as we trace out every detail that tells us of him and his love to us, and as the Holy Spirit reveals him to us through Jesus.
Do you sometimes find that when you try to pray?
Your thoughts of yesterday, today or the future crowd into your mind despite you trying to push them away?
With a mental shake I tried to fix my mind on what Jesus is - peace, love, compassion, joy, strength, wisdom, all-knowing, all-directing - and then to think over this chapter which I had distractedly read, asking him to speak through it.
This verse then seemed to stand out to me and I think I felt condemned that I wasn't delighting in him. Those swirling distracted thoughts seemed to be blocking my view of him, stopping me from lifting up my face, blurring my vision as it were.
How these are the times when we need to be coming to him and bringing all these things with us - pouring them all out at his feet in prayer, telling him - however broken and muddled our thoughts are - but giving it all to him.
On getting up to briefly switch off the washing machine I noticed the text for the day on the wall calendar,
'Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me'
What a sweet reminder this is of the Lord's constant care of his children! A reminder of the certainty and evidence of their salvation. A reminder of the immeasurable love God has for his individual and collective people.
The wonderful promise in this text on the calendar was like the voice of the parent to that upset child, the love calling me to lift up my face!
How about you - does it encourage and speak to you today?
Does it call you to lift your face towards him?
Whatever you are faced with today, whatever your circumstances, whatever your worries, your huge 'to do' list, your fears of the future - dear reader, if you know you are a child of God, if you trust that Jesus is your Saviour, may he help you to lift up your face by prayer and worship today!
Confess all your heart - he is looking at you with love, your certainty of it evident by the holes in his hand and the wound in his side.
Delight yourself in the thought and knowledge of what he is, what he can do, his care and thoughts of you.
If you say, you cannot, you have fresh guilt and sin which stands in between, or your sorrow is too great, I pray you will be enabled to hear his voice calling you through his word, that he will help you to lean on him, to confess and confide it all, to lift up your face to him, and bless you with sweet delights in his love and care of you.
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