When pain goes on and on, and prayers seem to us to be unanswered, we may find ourselves in the same situation as Job… trying to understand God from our limited perspective. And as we do this, we may come to the wrong conclusions about God. This happened to Job.

Job has come to the point where he blatantly declares that God has deprived him of justice (his rights) and God has made him bitter. We know from Scriptures throughout the whole Bible that God is holy, sovereign, wise and good. God does no evil. God commits no injustice.

The commentator John Walton says: “When life goes wrong, our concept of God may begin to deteriorate; first in small misconceptions, but these gradually become major misrepresentations of the divine character.” (NIV Application Commentary on Job)

When we think that we are right and God is wrong, then we are really wrong!

I’ll point out that pride is a problem for us all, and humility is the most important characteristic of our lives.

And then we’ll see that one of the things that will help us humble ourselves before God is to think about the wisdom of God.

Job highlights the search for wisdom with a very detailed description of mining for precious gemstones and metals. But as skilled as men were (and are now)  in finding hidden treasure, they are unable to discover wisdom apart from God.

Job emphasizes this point, and gives us the Lord’s definition of wisdom in verse 28.

What a verse! Job quotes the Lord!

Job 28:28  And to man He said, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,  And to depart from evil is understanding.”