Truth of the Week 17: With Him there is Peace
Job 22:21 – Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. NKJV
Job. What a guy. If you have never read the story of Job, you totally should. He’s righteous, he’s wealthy and prosperous and close to God. Satan gets bored walking all over the earth and after complaining about it God asks if he has considered Job. Satan then suggests Job is so well taken care of by God, why would not be so righteous towards God. So God allows Satan to do what he wants to Job – he just can’t kill him (Chapter 1:6-12)
Satan wreaks havoc on Job and Job is then left with a few close friends who try to offer suggestions and advice to help him out of his mess (read the rest of the book).
Fast forward to our chapter in Job our verse comes from. The friends around him here are Eliphaz who is the author of this chapter and Temanite. These guys are pretty convinced that Job has super offended God and didn’t act righteously in his way and trusted money over God. Job didn’t offend God, but the truth of peace when you are acquainted with Him is still true.
Verses 21-30 is Eliphaz’s instruction to Job to remedy his life. These verses are solidly inspired words of truth but the humanity of Eliphaz gets the better of him with his accusations of Job that are not founded in truth. The end verses about delivering the non-innocent are prophetic on how Job intercedes and his non-innocent friends here are delivered – Chapter 22:30; 42:8.
The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary interprets this instruction from Eliphaz: “Only if Job returns to the Almighty can he be assured of restoration. Prosperity will return, and one’s course of action will be accomplished because of harmony with God (22:27-28).”
So why is that? That’s right – God is for us, not against us – Romans 8:31. Eventually the pain will end and God will restore. That’s who He is.
Now to our Truth of the Week. Acquaint yourself with God. Commentary from NKJV says the Hebrew translated acquaint yourself or yield is derived from the same root as “be profitable”.
Then the verse is saying – be profitable with God, keep yourself at peace and then good will come to you. Acquainting yourself with God is profitable! Not just for our souls and our peace but on earthly goodness, as well.
How do we acquaint ourselves with God? How do you acquaint yourself with anyone or anything? You spend time with them. You learn about them. You get to know them through a relationship. What does that look with God?
For me it’s prayer. It’s praising God with praise and worship music. It’s learning about God through pastors and books and most importantly, The Bible.
When you make a good portion of your life about those things – God reveals Himself to you and you experience God with better perks than any other relationship you could have. You still can do all your grown-up things and weave God throughout your entire day every day. It’s a beautiful relationship. And when you absorb yourself in God, you stay in peace no matter what is going on.
When the worst things happen, you can still have peace. You have to let it come and not push it away. You will still feel pain but you can have a peace anyway. And, the pain won’t last forever. Well, maybe a few bits of pain, but not the overwhelming feeling of your life, if that makes sense.
I had peace even in the hospital for days on end delivering a baby I wouldn’t celebrate birthdays, Christmases, day in and day our milestones with. I hurt something fierce but I had peace. And many years later, I may have moments of missing these things but overall I have vision of the good that will come later and the pain has very much subsided.
Eventually Job’s pain did subside and God blessed him again. Job I’m sure had physical and emotional scars but was redeemed the way God redeems. He did it for Job, has done it for me, and can do it for you.
