March 24, 2024

Passage Read: Job 17-20
Meditation Verses: 19:21-22

Thought

Job's friends cannot believe he is innocent of wrongdoing. The tragedy and disaster that have befallen him can only be the hand of God and all creation set against him because of some terrible sin or many concealed sins. To Job's friends, there can be no other explanation. So in their earnestness to rescue Job, they must call out his sin, though they have no idea what he's done; he must come clean and repent. Job, on the other hand, knows of nothing he has done wrong, so God has simply set him as an enemy, and chosen to rip him to shreds. He cannot get comfort from his friends and he cannot get comfort from God. Amazingly, he knows that at some point, God will redeem him and rescue him, even if after death. He has full confidence in his innocence and God's justice, that he knows that some day he will be rescued and stand before His Maker at peace.

Application

This really is the final curse of Job, that everyone around him, friend and foe, consider him a fool. Not only has he lost all his children and wealth and health, but his friends consider him a wicked man and strangers mock at him. He has lost all respect, all dignity, all honor. He is completely humiliated on top of everything else. But amazingly, the One who has done all this to him is still his greatest and only hope. He has had everything taken from him, only to reveal that God remains his only and truest hope. Even if God is furious with me, He remains my only hope. Family and friends may turn against me; I may bring it on myself or Satan may cut us off, but God remains my only hope. I know that whether He is bringing discipline that I deserve or allowing me to suffer for some other purpose, I can be confident in His love. If there is sin in me and I repent, I will find mercy. If there is no sin, I only need to trust and wait patiently, and He will reveal Himself. It is good to be broken and rejected, so that my hope can be fixed on Him alone.