The Invitation to Reimagine God's End Game

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“And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold. And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first daughter Jemimah, and the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-happuch. And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations. And Job died, an old man, and full of days.” (Job 42:10–17, ESV)

The final invitation from the book of Job is to reimagine God’s end game—what He plans to do when all is said and done. The “squeezes of this life—the unpleasant and even painful ones” aren't wasted or random; they are getting us ready for something far more beautiful. Even though Job the character is hopeless at times, Job the book is profoundly hopeful.

A Hallmark Ending

At first, the ending of Job can feel jarring, a little too perfect, or cheap. It sounds like an ancient version of “and he lived happily ever after”. This can feel disconnected from our reality, where lost children are not simply replaced and broken things are not always restored twice-over in this life.

The end of Job is not just a nice bow on one man's story. It is pointing to something much bigger than a resolution to one man's suffering.

The Restoration of All Things

“And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10, ESV)

The key to understanding the ending is in the word “restored”. In Hebrew, the word is shuv (שׁוב), and it is a "theologically load-bearing" word.

• Throughout the Old Testament, shuv describes the restoration of the relationship between God and humanity—a return to how things were meant to be.
  • Deuteronomy 30:2-3, 6
• More broadly, it points to God's future plan to restore all things—to make all things new, to repair all brokenness, and to heal every sickness. The entire storyline of the Bible points to this day.
  • Revelation 21:3-4

The end of Job is good news not because you'll get back what you lost in this life, but because it is a foretaste of what God plans to do for all of creation. It points to a God who will one day make all things right.

So What?

The wisdom of this book prompts us to take all we experience and ask the question, "What if?".

• Receive the invitation to reimagine. What if this dead-end job, this season of loneliness, or this pain is preparing you for something more? Those who can pause and trust that God is doing something more are able to find peace even in the darkest valleys.

• Receive the one who makes it possible: Jesus. Jesus is God's end game. He is the true and better Job who endured the ultimate suffering so that we would never be alone in ours. In His resurrection, Jesus began the great work of restoration (shuv), and His victory is the guarantee that God’s plan to restore all things is not just wishful thinking. The first step to reimagining God’s end game is to put your trust in Jesus.

• Example: Horatio Spafford, after losing his four daughters at sea, penned the words, “It is well, it is well, with my soul”. He wasn't saying it was well with his circumstances, which were a wreck. He was saying that because he had reimagined God's end game, he could trust in the day when God will make all things well.
  

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