He Knows The Way That I Take

But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside.
[Job 23:10-11 NKJV]

The Book of Job is said to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest book in the Bible. It tells of the relationship between God and man in a unique way, and rewards our study by aiding our understanding exactly because of that different perspective.

The story is told in the main, as a form of philosophical debate between Job and three others, often referred to as Job’s ‘comforters’, although surely that description is ironic as these three debaters are anything but comforting at times.

Our verses here come a little over half way through the book as Job answers the accusation of wickedness by Eliphaz the Temanite. Job asserts that God is all righteousness and that though he cannot see God; he looks for Him and it seems that He is not there, yet ‘He knows the way that I take.’

There is an integrity about Job. His belief in God and his trusting of Him — despite the trials and great testing that threaten to overwhelm him — reveal a man of faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
[Hebrews 11:1-3 NKJV]

Because of his faith, Job has followed the way of The Lord. In many ways, Job has had huge misfortune piled upon him, yet he wavers not. He has been on the road to Antioch, Iconium and Lystra; ‘’persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me.”
[2 Timothy 3:11]

These places speak of being thrown about by the winds of misfortune, captured by the appeal of idolatry and having to pay the price. All works that God allows Satan to do.
And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.”
[Job 1:11 NKJV].

This is crucial. Satan cannot ‘lay a hand’ upon your person. We should rejoice in this curb on the devil’s power — he is really in chains. The quote below says as much. And remember that our Lord takes us ‘a way we would not go’ by our own choosing.

“I have chosen you.” Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. Why is God at work in me, bending, breaking, moulding, doing just as He chooses?—for one purpose only—that He may be able to say, “This is My man, My woman.”

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