Every now and then, when I am in my head, wondering, doubting, struggling, seeking, something comes across my desk (or my email inbox) that seems to be a word in that moment for me. Today’s word came from an email list I subscribed to months ago but haven’t always engaged with on a weekly basis. (It often seems to hit when I am busy, and I hit delete without much thought.)

But today was different. I had time. And felt like I should take a look. It was from A.J. Swaboda, a pastor and professor who writes on his Substack channel called The Low-Level Theologian. Today he looked at the passage in Job that reads, “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him” (Jb. 23:8–9).

Here are a few of Swaboda’s words that jumped off the screen at me:

Job never receives the answers he was looking for. Still, he gets God. In fact, as the book continues, we learn a crucial lesson from his life: God often gives us himself, not the answers we wish we could have. We always get presence—but not always explanation.

Whether driven by a desire for a perfect walk with God, a scrupulous attempt to avoid making our own choices, or a desire never to be hurt by our own mistakes, we demand that God tell us what to do all the time.

This ends up crippling our spiritual lives. Mainly because the God of the Bible doesn’t seem to operate like this. Countless times in the Bible, God doesn’t tell humans what to do. They have to act, take risks, and walk in faith. What if God allows us, like Job, to experience long periods of uncertain difficulty where we don’t know what to do, yet we are called to keep loving God and make the best choices we can?

God does speak. And God does give directions—sometimes. But in the times in between, we desperately need to see why stories like Job’s were included in the biblical canon. It is there for a reason. And yet we don’t want to see it. Part of loving God is learning to accept that we don’t always know what he wants us to do. And yet we still act in faith.

When we do have the clarity we long for, we should act. Lord knows that kind of clarity comes less often than we’d like. But it is critical to act when we have it. In the times in between, take a deep breath, look to God in the fact, and thank him that you are beheld even when you don’t understand what you are to do.

That kind of faith, it turns out, is often God’s will.

If this hits you where you are, check out the full article here.