March 23, 2024

Passage Read: Job 13-16
Meditation Verse: 13:12

Thought

It is easier and more comfortable to have a simple view of life and God and everything, especially if it assures me that I'm safe. But platitudes don't dig in to understand what is really going on, what God might be doing or what I might be concealing. Job was suffering from no fault of his own, but his friends (and even he) believed that bad things only happened to bad people, good things only to the good. So Job struggled with thinking God had made a mistake, or else was severely punishing him without letting him know what he'd done wrong. His friends had it easier: Obviously Job had sinned terribly against God and wasn't confessing; he knew his sin but wouldn't admit it. Both were wrong, but couldn't see past their simplistic view of God and their platitudes. Job received no help and his friends gave none.

Application

If my only goal in life is to manage everything that comes at me in as simplistic means as possible, then all I need are platitudes and pithy sayings. But if my goal is to know God and understand all He's doing in the world, then I need to take more time in His word to understand Him, so that I can begin to see how He sees all that is happening in the world or in the lives of those around me. Sometimes it is as simple as an individual's sin. Sometimes it's far more complex than that. For sin to be the knee-jerk answer to everything is unhelpful; for innocence to be the default understanding is likewise unhelpful. Just like it takes time to understand God, so it takes time to discern what He is doing in my life and in the lives of others. Few of us have set our hearts to seek and honor God as Job, so our own sin is the likely culprit behind so many of our problems. That's always a good starting point, but to be locked in to that one possibility and blind to any other causes means I cannot grow in my understanding of God and what He's doing in this world.