After God's speech and after Job has finally stopped demanding answers, Job says: 'I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.' There's a shift from intellectual knowledge to direct encounter. Job thought he knew God. But experiencing God - even in the context of suffering - changes him.
I can teach about God. I can preach about grace and sovereignty and love. But there's a difference between that kind of knowledge and the kind you get when you're actually broken and God meets you there. That's what Job is describing. Not that his suffering made sense, but that he met God in a different way.
I don't think I'd have the faith I have now without the crisis that nearly destroyed me. The God I met in that darkness is a different God than the one I'd read about. Not a different God in reality, but a different knowing of the same God. I'd heard about Him. Now I know Him.
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