In a Fog

For the past few days I’ve been reading about Job, a man who loudly defended himself saying that the terrible calamities in his life were not happening because God was punishing him for some sin that he had not acknowledged.

At the end of the book, God talks to Job about his attempts to try and figure out what God was doing and about his declarations concerning himself. Essentially He says to this man, “Who do you think you are? You really know nothing.”

Job responded with, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. . . . Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:2-3).

Job flopped around in unknown territory. He didn’t know what God was doing with his life and it seems that God never revealed it to him. However, God does make it known to us now, partly so we might learn and profit. For one thing, this man’s life shows what God can do with me and what He can allow Satan to do with me as well.

As I’ve read this, I’ve had this vague sense of not being right with God, but without any idea what I’d done that might need confessing. In my understanding, that vagueness is often Satan trying to produce false guilt and prevent me from moving on with the Lord. I’ve asked God to show me what is going on, but am not getting anything from Him.

Today I asked again and the verses He directed me to are these from 1 John 1:8-10. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

Suddenly I feel a bit like Job. It is possible that God is not pointing at my conscience with anything specific, but at the same time I cannot declare my innocence. No person is without sin. It might not be that I’ve done something that gives me a sense of guilt, but I cannot say that my life is clean and clear. Can anyone?

Even with an effort to keep short accounts with God, I’m aware of that shortfall; I am not like Jesus Christ. Therefore, my life must have selfish and sinful elements in it. Like Job, if I protest my innocence, I really don’t know what I’m talking about.

1 John 1:9 has always been a verse that I consider most important. What can I do about my sin? I cannot stop it, fix it, make it right or get rid of it. Only God can forgive and cleanse it, and my part is to simply agree with Him that sin is in my life. I am to confess that I’ve sinned, am a sinner, and sometimes even that I love my sin and do not hate it as He hates it.

My devotional reading offers a perspective I’d not thought about. It says that confessing sin is a mark of divine light in my life. If I can confess any sin, it shows the work of grace in my heart. That is, if I possess his life, if I have received grace, if I am a child of God, then Jesus has obeyed for me. He suffered for me, died for me and has put away my sin.

The author goes on to say that because I am a child of God and Jesus has done all things for me, God is now “faithful” to this promise. He will receive a confessing sinner; He is “just” to His own character and in justice and mercy, faithfulness and compassion, He will pardon me and blot out every iniquity and every transgression—as I confess my sin, that is, as I agree with His assessment of me and say so to Him.

Sometimes this vague sense of sin means I need to go to Him with the general stuff I am aware of and He then brings to mind the specifics. Sometimes it means that I need to review the facts of the gospel, that Jesus died for me and I am forgiven because of His sacrifice, and then rejoice in the power of God to pardon and save. Sometimes it means that Satan is after me, trying to keep me from praying (which guilt often does) and therefore I need to pray all the more.

One thing I do know—God hears and answers. If I’m willing to come to Him, like Job who never made the mistake of giving up on God, He will speak and tell me exactly what He wants me to hear. I may never find out what is causing this sense of separation, but because of His promise never to leave or forsake me, I know that the separation part is only an illusion. Guilty or not, I’m still in His presence and eventually His light will drive away my fog.