Passage Read: Job 33-36
Meditation Verse: 35:2
Thought
Elihu is as wrong as the rest, and like the rest, he doesn't understand why, because he doesn't understand Job or how Job could consider himself to be without sin. He has misunderstood Job's words, and misrepresented him because of it. But this statement here is a good warning. Job has not condemned God as wrong to judge him so severely. Rather, he has asked for a declaration of his guilt because he has no idea what he did wrong so as to deserve this punishment. He doesn't understand why the Lord has stretched out his hand against him, though it wasn't actually the Lord, but the Lord did permit the disasters that have come upon him. The danger we all face when complaining about how the Lord treated us is that we can imply that we are more righteous than God. If God has made a mistake and judged Job wrongly, then God is imperfect. If Job is indeed without sin and God has judged him unfairly, then Job is now more righteous than God. For us to be critical of anything God does, without recognizing our own sin, makes us out to be more righteous than God. That can never be, if God is perfect. Justifying ourselves without also justifying God is to imply that we are better than God. And that is a dangerous place to be.
Application
As far as I'm concerned, God must always be right. Either God is the definition of righteousness, truth and justice, or God is not God. If I am more righteous than God, then God is a figment of my imagination. Or rather, I am in greater sin than I realize. I have no business or right to judge God, because I can't even make right judgments about myself and my neighbors! If I don't understand what God is doing, that doesn't mean God has done wrong, but that I don't understand God or righteousness or who I really am. To be critical of God is the height of arrogance, and I should stay far from it. It's fine to not understand what God is doing and ask questions to learn from Him. It's quite another to question what He does because I think He's wrong.