You will call and I will answer you; You will long for the creature Your hands have made. Surely then You will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; You will cover over my sin. (Job 14:15-17)
In Job 14, Job continues to waver back and forth between faith and doubt, hope and despair. What was interesting to me was the thing that gave Job some hope. You will long for the creature Your hands have made. Job’s hope was rooted in the heart of God and in His love for His creatures. To be honest, I had never really stopped and considered that God would long for me because I am His creation. Sometimes I forget what it means to be a creation of God, to be crafted by God’s hands, to be precious in His sight because I am His offspring and live and move in His very presence (cf. Acts 17:28). God longs for me. Wow. I can’t fathom that. The Creator of the universe longing to have relationship with me. I can only catch a glimpse of that thought by thinking of my own children. I did not create them but they are a part of me. Somehow in God’s miraculous design, I had a hand in their existence. And I long for a strong, deep relationship with them. I shudder at the possibility of their future rebellion, of them using their free will to reject everything I taught them, to be ungrateful for what I provided for them, to take advantage of me, or to, God forbid, even seek to hurt me by willfully living a life in opposition to my desires. How those same kind of actions by us must grieve the heart of God.
Job held onto the hope of restoration and forgiveness because he firmly believed that he was a precious creation of God. He was God’s child. And as His child, Job could not believe that God would abandon Him forever. Indeed, Job believed that God longed for him and could not reject His own. Such is the hope of the child of God.
Lord, thank You for creating me and loving me.