I had heard of you...
Illustration
"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you," says Job to the
Almighty. "Therefore ... I repent in dust and ashes." God's awe-inspiring self-revelation
in the whirlwind caused Job to rethink his values. That kind of dramatic turnaround is
"repentance." Tony Campolo offers a helpful way of understanding repentance. In his
book, Who Switched the Price Tags? Campolo suggests our world is like a store
that some mischievous boys broke into overnight. They switched the price tags on all the
items so all costs and values were confused. Often the ultimately unimportant things in
life: prosperity, popularity, and power seem to be supreme, and the really important
things: doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly in relationship with God
(Micah 6:8) are undervalued. Repentance is first rethinking our values to get them right
and then pursuing those new values. Job initially sought justification before God and his
friends. He ended up prizing a relationship with the living God who created and sustained
him and all things. It's interesting that once Job got his values correct, all his earlier
losses were restored.
