As Paradoxical as it Might Sound

Saturday evening, August 9, 2008 [beautiful evening but 90 degrees!]
Hopefully, you will try really-hard to read through this quote from Mason's book (p. 47) before you decide to discard it: "From the outset Job blames no one but God for his problems. Of course he does no really 'blame' God at all—he trusts Him. He trusts God enough to locate the final source and cause of all his adversity directly with Him, the Sovereign Lord of the universe, and yet still to hope in Him. And this remains the hallmark of Job's faith throughout the book. Always he looks directly to the Lord as the one ultimately responsible for everything that happens, and never does he get sidetracked into blaming his troubles on a multitude of more obvious, yet secondary causes such as the weather (Job 1:16, 19), other people (1:15, 17), or the Devil (of whom he has no knowledge anyway0. Most surprisingly of all, Job does not blame himself." Careful now, take it easy; don't throw the proverbial "baby" out with the bathwater!
Yes, I realize that this, even the thought of it, this makes some folk very ill, as in angry. The very idea that God is responsible for everything that happens in this universe is just too much for some to handle, especially when it makes us face the fact that "everything" includes EVERYTHING—sickness, death, even bad things happening to good people (whatever that means).
Now listen up: either God is God, or He is not, and, just for the record—HE IS! Now, because He is God, as in GOD, we must come to grips with some things that are not easily gripped, especially with our finite abilities to grip. For example, neither you nor I get to dictate to God how He is supposed to behave; if we could, then guess what: we would be God (or god, I should say!).
If you will take note of what went on in the first part of the book of Job, you will notice another example: Satan had to have God's permission before he could do anything to Job. In other words, had God chosen not to give Satan permission to attack Job, then Job would have lived and died without ever having to go through any of the pain and agony that he suffered BECAUSE God chose to give Satan permission.
This is just my not-so-humble opinion: I would hate to think that ANYTHING could happen anywhere in God's universe, without God being the One responsible; otherwise, someone else would be and that would scare the daylights out of me, especially if that "someone" happened to be Satan (or some people I know, for that matter).
Anyway, until we accept the fact that God is the Sovereign Lord of the Universe, we will stay bogged-down trying to understand all the "reasons" for our misfortune. This is the way Mason said what I just attempted to say: "Here we need the kind of faith whose God is so big as to be not just unmanageable, but to a large extent (as paradoxical as this may sound to Christian ears) unknowable" (p.47).
You think about that-