If my memory is correct, it was Freek de Jonge who used the words of our title at an event organized for the children of ministers in 2002. He still had a bone to pick with God. The entertainer was going to settle the score with the living God! There would certainly be a lot of discussion. God does so many things that we don’t understand. There are plenty of questions about his decree. He does not answer them. And we carry a lot of questions in our heart. They can easily become an accusation against God. Don’t we all have a bone to pick with God?

Complaints⤒🔗

All kinds of questions can live in us, even if we don’t rebel against God by joining a gathering of unbelievers in mocking him. For is it not rebellion when you know him as the potter and yourself as the clay (Isa. 29:16; 45:9; Rom. 9:20)? He does not have to justify himself to us. He asks us for an account. With that realization a God-fearing life begins. But anyone who will stand before God with a God-fearing life also experiences the trouble of what he doesn’t understand. Especially when disasters come into our life, or into our world. Then there is room to complain to God.

In the Psalms we can hear God’s children complain to God. In Psalm 10:1 the poet asks, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” He is suffering under the oppression of the wicked with their pride, and calls for help for those who suffer in their misery. It is incomprehensible to him that God does not intervene. A similar complaint can be heard in Psalm 42 and 43: “Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” While these psalms speak about the personal suffering of God’s children at the hand of God’s enemies, Psalm 74 laments the destruction of Jerusalem, and Psalm 80:12 is in line with this as well. Whatever people complain about, it is as if the Lord is rejecting his child and hiding himself from him (Ps. 88:14). And isn’t the same difficulty heard in the question: “How long?” (Ps. 13; 89:46), with which God’s children express how much they’re looking forward to God’s saving intervention, and how they cannot figure out his delay. That there is room for such complaints becomes clear when we learn to see the words of our Saviour, who used the words of Psalm 22 while he hung on the cross, “Why have you forsaken me?”

When we realize that the Psalms were inspired through the Holy Spirit, and that for us these constitute the Word of God, then we also acknowledge that these complaints evidently have a connection to a prayer worked through the Spirit. It is a complaining and questioning of faith. That becomes clear also when we see that God’s child does not turn away from the Lord with his troubles, but that (as witnessed by the fact that he prays) he brings the matter before the Lord. The complaining is done in a spirit of trust in God (see Ps. 10:12; 22:5). Even the complaint is not without praise (see Pss. 10:16ff.; 22:23ff.; 42:5; 74:12)! You hear how God’s child wrestles in prayer to comprehend God’s way of doing things. That is a different struggle than that of unbelief, which claims to have a bone to pick with the living God.

Retractions←⤒🔗

Whoever lives with the Lord may complain to him. But that is not all there is to it. It is remarkable that believers we meet in Scripture take back their complaint and retract their words. They don’t stay stuck in their grievance, but instead come closer to God. That is a huge difference from the complaint of unbelief. Let’s have a look at two examples.

In the first place we will consider Job. If anyone could be justified in complaining to God, it certainly is him! In short order he lost all his possessions. In one blow he lost all of his ten children. His wife left him. His friends started to attack him. They came to comfort him, but confronted him by saying that in his life there had to be a reason for all this misery. All of that while Job was clearly a righteous man. The Lord says it himself in chapter 1. Doesn’t that make it all the more understandable that Job is complaining? God’s Word itself gives reason to expect prosperity and blessing when you sincerely fear the Lord and depart from evil. It is not for nothing that Psalm 1 congratulates the pious children of God with the prosperity they will enjoy. How often do we not come across similar promises in his Word? But that’s not how Job experienced it in his suffering. What a load of grief this righteous man had to carry! Didn’t he have much more reason than we often have to complain to God?

A generous amount of time is also spent on that. The protracted conversations with Job’s friends testify to that. Their perspective is painted on a broad canvas, and Job’s reply notes in detail his needs and all the questions that keep him occupied.

Because he speaks with so many words in voicing his lengthy rebuttals, his final words jump out even more at us. “Therefore I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). That is the conclusion: Job retracts all his words. He withdraws all his complaints. Apparently ashamed about all the words he has spoken he admits, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (v. 3). He lacked insight about the things he complained of.

It is, I think, not saying too much that Job has learned what Psalm 131 is singing about. The poet of this psalm exclaims, “I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” In this we can hear the recognition of the human measure that falls short in so many ways of the wonderful wisdom of God, and which then also commands our humility. As also Psalm 139:14 testifies, “Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Job has become aware of this realization, and he is ashamed that he, as such a small somebody, dared to use such big words against God. This compels him to recant his earlier words in full repentance.

The second example concerns the poet Asaph, who experienced something similar. In Psalm 73 we read that he could not understand the fact that the wicked were prospering while he, as God’s child, had to suffer. He was bothered by it. Does it make any sense to serve the Lord? “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence” (v. 13). Aren’t those the questions to ask when we are reminded of God’s promises of blessings for the man who serves him? It’s an incomprehensible dilemma. But Asaph too takes back his words. “When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in my heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you” (vv. 21, 22). Afterwards he began to realize seriously that his questions and complaints were expressions of foolishness and ignorance. Like Job he acknowledges without any reservation that he has not spoken well of God. The space that God gives to complain is also the space not to remain stuck in complaints but to come to reflection and self awareness. Then we learn to revoke our complaints against God.

Knowing God←⤒🔗

In the beginning of his Institutes, Calvin writes that true wisdom consists of knowing God and knowing ourselves, with a close connection between those two aspects. So also Job and Asaph came to see themselves and to recognize their limited human understanding, because they learned to know the Lord.

Asaph acknowledges that he kept fretting until he entered into God’s sanctuary (v. 17). There he learned to see the end of the wicked who led such prosperous lives. It became clear to him how they might have had all kinds of success but yet God set them in slippery places and made them come to ruin. Because Asaph’s eyes were opened to God and his ways of operation, his worries melted away. He recognized his own foolishness in God’s mirror.

That’s how it went with Job. He admits, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). He has seen the Lord God and that has freed him from all his questioning.

Did Job not know the Lord? Of course he did. He served the Lord with all his heart. There was no one like Job. Did he ever know God! So, in what sense did he not know him? Let’s try to illustrate it with a comparison. Imagine a situation where the parents first hear about their son having a relationship with a young girl. On this basis they have formed an impression of her. But now their son actually brings her home. They see her with their own eyes and because they meet her they learn to know her better than whatever may have been told them. They learn to value her more than the good impression they already had of her. That may serve as a comparison to what was happening to Job. He knew the Lord from hearsay, but now he has seen him. God came to him in a storm wind and talked with him (Job 38). From the midst of this force of nature the Lord answered Job, and that is how he came to see ever more clearly who the Lord God is. In the mirror of that knowledge he realized how small he was and that his big words did not match his human measure.

From Job and Asaph we learn how important it is to know the Lord God in all our many questions and complaints. Scripture speaks often about getting to know the Lord, the great importance of it, the riches of this knowledge (1 Cor. 1:5), and about us growing in the right knowledge (Eph. 4; Col. 1). This does not imply a theoretical knowledge, but one that has practical meaning for our lives with God. This is evident from the fact that Job and Asaph, through getting to know God, discover who they are themselves and who they are in relation to God. How much more will this count for us now that our understanding of God exceeds theirs, because we now know him in Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3)!

Then you notice a parting of the ways when it comes to all the complaints people have about God. People complain about the same causes. They question the same hardships, the same disasters. They are all faced with the same incomprehensible events. Then the unbelief that does not know God grows in arrogance that confronts Him to pick some bones with him, but does not go beyond the complaint, the charge against God. But the faith that knows God in Christ grows in humility, that overcomes our big mouths and recants of our bold words, and allows humble people to find their rest and peace in God, the quiet rest of Psalm 131: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.”

Rest←⤒🔗

It is an amazing rest! Job no longer asks questions. Did the Lord then answer all his questions? Did he explain himself? That is the best way to get rid of questions, and it was a long reply that the Lord gave Job. It starts in Job 38 and carries on to chapter 41, four long chapters. Perhaps it is better to call it a reaction, because nowhere does the Lord explicitly answer Job’s questions. As far as that goes, at the end he is no further than at the beginning. So, what is the Lord’s reaction? He takes Job along on a tour through the world he created. It is a prolonged sightseeing tour where God shows all kinds of creatures while asking Job questions. Job, where were you when I created the world? Tell me, how big is creation? What is its foundation? Did you make the light? Did you take care of it that mornings come each new day? Tell me about the causes of rain, snow, and ice? And the Lord continues his questioning about space, natural occurrences, the beauty of the animal world, the horse, the hippopotamus and crocodile. Each question leaves you speechless because you have no insights into the wonderful works of God. We stand open-mouthed in admiration for his majesty. The Lord impresses Job with his unlimited power and his immeasurable wisdom, yet does not reply to Job’s questions.

Is this not an amazing reply? It even seems like the Lord overwhelms and defeats Job completely through his display of majesty. But that is not the case when we take a look at Job’s last words. It is noteworthy that Job twice quotes words that the Lord had spoken earlier. In Job 42:3, “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” With that question the Lord began his first answer to Job, in chapter 38. In Job 42:4 Job says, “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you so that you make it known to me.” This connects to 38:3 as well as to the start of the Lord’s second answer in 40:1. In his final reaction to all that the Lord has said to him during this tour, Job weaves the Lord’s words through his own. It is as if he mumbles to himself the opening questions of the Lord, the way a man might do when he is intensely busy with something. Job has not been destroyed on account of God’s majesty, although it certainly occupies him. He is not suddenly ready after all that the Lord has shown him. It has touched him deeply and it has made him to think. God has not just skimmed over his questions, but in tremendous ways he has enlarged Job’s perspective.

We can compare the Lord’s reaction with how a mother reacts when her daughter gets angry. It bothers the girl greatly that she only receives so little spending money. One day she blurts out her frustration to her mother. She considers her mother to be a bad mother. How does Mom react? She does not get angry, but sums up all the things she has done for her daughter that day or that week. While the girl is totally fixated on her allowance, her one big peeve, her mother shows that there are many things that are much more important. When the girl’s eyes are opened to this, her complaint melts away and she realizes again what a good mother she has.

The Lord deals with Job in a similar way. He does not deal with his questions, but instead of having him focused on his obsession he places him right in the middle of the big reality of God’s majesty. There is so much more than the complaint to which a human heart fixates itself. The Lord is so much greater than we think. His power is so much stronger than a mere mortal can comprehend and his wisdom is without limits. As a small human being you’re not immediately ready to accept this. When you have seen the Lord you may and will realize: I am with my whole life included in the mighty and infinitely wise work of this living God.

That awareness gives Job peace. Not because his questions are answered, but through the knowledge of God. And then we say: the knowledge of God in Christ. Our mind wants answers to our questions, but the knowledge of God brings about a peace that surpasses all our understanding (Phil. 4), and in that way God’s children can continue their lives, even with questions that receive no answer. God is not to be understood. However, as small, insignificant beings we may trust him fully!

Happy Ending←⤒🔗

We don’t hear a crushed Job at the end of all that has been said in this long book of the Bible, but rather a trusting Job. “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Is that just a general expression about God’s majesty and power? May we not also apply it to the difficulties that Job had to experience in his suffering, while the Lord had promised to give the righteous his blessings? I see a parallel with Asaph. When he came with the same difficulties into God’s house he regained the confidence that the Lord would guide him and receive him to glory (Ps. 72:24, 25). Even though the way of the wicked went over great heights, and his own way through a deep valley, he expected a happy ending based on God’s promise.

And Job perceived his own small stature, but also discovered his confidence, regained in God. He confesses that nothing can thwart God’s plans. If that is not possible, then God will also bless those who believe in him! We hear Job confessing what much later is also written by the apostle Paul, that God does all things for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28). This is how Job’s life comes to a happy ending: the — I would almost say excessive — blessing that he receives after all his misery. And James can write later: “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11). Job was blessed. The Lord fulfilled his promises. In all that God’s children endure, his happy ending is an example of the happy ending that there will be for all God’s children. That promise stands, even when we don’t understand God’s ways with us. God’s way is never a dead-end street and none of God’s plans will fail. We may surely have that trust now that Christ has paid for it with his blood!

Perspective←⤒🔗

That is how the knowledge of the Lord creates great expectations. It teaches us also a great degree of humility. Great expectations, because none of God’s plans will fail. Humility, because we cannot compare with his wisdom and cannot equal his majesty. This protects us from unbelief, or from having a big mouth and calling God to account. Do we really want to pick a bone with God? Never! We will know him as never before, from face to face (1 Cor. 13). We will be filled with him and praise him for his power, for his wisdom, for his love in Christ Jesus. And all our questions will have melted away as snow before the sun.