Monday, March 12, 2018

How can a man be in the right before God?  If one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him once in a thousand times.                             Job 9:2-3
      The Book of Job is fascinating reading.  For one thing, Job seems to be in the right.  He was a righteous, good man; blameless before God and people.  What happens to him is not only unfair (a word that we humans use often), it’s downright horrendous.  Then Job goes a step further in faithfulness and refuses to condemn God.  His wife and friends berate him for his continuing loyalty to God, but Job stands firm.  Eventually, in his despair, Job questions God and demands answers.  What he gets in response is what he has always known: that God’s ways are not humanity’s ways; that there are some answers we can’t understand.  And he also, in the end, receives God’s mercy and the return of his blessings a hundred-fold.  We all have ‘Job times’ in our lives; times of loss or suffering. 
      However dark those times, God is still there.  He doesn’t mind if we scream our despair to him.  He understands.  But it is useless to debate with him.  We do better to be like Job, and to remain as faithful as we can, knowing that God’s purposes evolve toward blessings.
©Carol Dean Henn, 2018