How to Complain to God

“Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it on me as a crown; I would give him an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him.” Job 31:35-37

Life is difficult and unfair. I remember as a child growing up and being reminded constantly by my parents that life isn't fair. Whenever my older sister would get to go the dollar store and I couldn't go or my younger brother would get the toy I wanted on Christmas, I would plead my case before my parents and the response was always, "Cody, sometimes life just isn't fair." On such occasions I returned to my room, buried my head in my pillow and longed for an impartial judge to hear my case and give me fairness. But no such judge existed. Job was a man who, though righteous, lost everything. He was charitable, faithful, loving, wise, and generous and in payment for his integrity his wealth, health, and household was destroyed. Unlike the trivial things I saw as unfair as a child, his complaint was well founded. Job was the lab rat for a cosmic social experiment. So when Job complains, nobody should be surprised. At some point in every one of our lives, we will have to reconcile the realities of the suffering and unfairness of pain in this world, with the perfect and loving God who created it. Why would God, who is infinitely just, do this to Job? Furthermore, why was Job considered righteous for complaining? Job examines every aspect of his soul, he pleads with God to show him where he messed up, and ultimately demanded a fair hearing in front of the Lord almighty. And in this response, it seems God was pleased. If we define God's justice merely by fairness and equality, we will miss the point and never reconcile suffering with God. What Job learns eventually and what God ultimately declares is that God's justice is anything that serves to proclaim deeper and more poignantly his glory to others. The greatest thing any human being can experience and behold is the glory of God. Job's complaining with God, his wrestling and confusion, his bitterness and angst was justly brought upon him by God to declare majestically his power and sovereignty over creation. Job was righteous in his complaints because they ultimately brought about and magnified the glory of God. It's a hard lesson and one I'm still learning today. We are all pawns in the game of God's glory, and by it we are blessed.

Lord Jesus, let us see your glory as the ultimate purpose for justice and bring our complaints before you in a way that brings you praise!

We Give Up Quickly

““Should a multitude of words go unanswered, and a man full of talk be judged right? Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you?” Job 11:2-3

The thought of feeding the homeless, helping the helpless, comforting the suffering, and fixing the broken are always highly appealing to those with religious sentiments. It is not uncommon to give up a Saturday around Christmas to serve at a soup kitchen, or to toss a few coins into the hands of the beggar in a downtown alleyway. We all love to be the shoulder for others to cry on and the voice of wisdom in a misguided friends life. These things are all good things and the desire to help those who are hurting is evidence of God's presence in our lives. But for many people, charity has a short life when its truly played out with those who are in need of it. We all want to feed hungry people, but are shocked that they would steal bread or ask for more than what we give them. We love to comfort those who are hurting, but when out of their hurt they show anger, pain, and doubt, we slink back in confusion. We desire to help those in need, but are surprised that they act needy. Job's friends had the same problems. When they first arrived, they sat in silence with their suffering friend for seven days. There is no doubt they cared about Job and wanted genuinely to help him. But when Job finally opens his mouth and acts like a man who lost everything without cause and a man in sever physical pain, there compassion quickly dries up and turns to frustration that Job won't just humbly accept their advice and be healed instantly. It is frightening how quickly I lose patience with hurting people because they won't let me be the hero I thought I would be in their lives. Broken people act broken, suffering people act hurt, and needy people act needy. If our compassion for those in need is not coupled with patience through the long process of recovery, then we fall into the same sin of Job's friends and do not reflect God's patience for us. If God treated us the way we treat others in need, we would be hopeless.

Lord Jesus, please give us both compassion and patience to walk with others through their hurts. Let us not give up on loving others!

God Out of the Box

“It is all one; therefore I say, He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.” Job 9:22

One of the difficult things about reading Job is how to sort through the advice given by Job's friends. Although in the end we know God finds them with fault and finds Job faultless, it is difficult to see how that could be possible in the middle of things. Job's first friend Eliphaz looks at Job's situation and says Job must have sinned against God to have this much suffering brought upon him. A lot of the things he says about God are found elsewhere in Scripture, God does bring punishment and destruction down on the wicked and there is wisdom in examining your actions if calamity is brought upon you. After Job denies that he has sinned against God and wishes that God would just kill him, his second friend takes a stronger approach. Bildad sees Job's struggle through suffering as offensive and says surely there is malice in your heart and you must repent, because God just doesn't destroy righteous people. Once again, Bildad is not entirely wrong in his assessment on how God acts during certain circumstances. Job then responds in a way that seems even more blasphemous, he claims that if there were a fair judge between him and God, he would be in the right. The advice given by Job's friends is not all that different from the advice many of us would give to a friend in a similar circumstance. Our view of God's justice is clean and systematic where he punishes the sinful and prospers the righteous and nothing can exist outside of that box. But that is exactly where Job's friends, and likewise many of us, err. God's justice is not a systematic equation of fairness or a black and white labeling of right and wrong. God's justice is whatever God does, regardless of what we find fair or equitable. Job sees this. Job sees that God can still be just and sovereign and destroy both the wicked and the righteous. The all-powerful glory and sovereignty of God is the point. It is so easy for us to put God and his attributes into a neat little box and build our controlled world around a God who is predictable and safe. That is the sin of Job's friends and it is a sin that I so frequently fall into. God is neither predictable or safe and the proper response to his interaction in the world is not to control him, but to worship him in the awe of his terrifying might.

Lord Jesus, let us fear you because you are a God who is not safe, who does what he pleases and is always just!

The Plight of Job

“But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Job 2:10

I often times fear how I would respond to God if my circumstances were different. When reading the book of Job it is easy to caricature the different people in the story and turn it into a one of those flannel Sunday school lessons of lifeless cut outs. We can look at Job's wife as simply a nagging wife, we can look at his friends as cold, legalistic idiots with no sympathy, we can see Job as an unrealistic superhero of faith, and we can see God as a cruel unjust deity who hands over the fate of this man to a cunning devil. But to see the book like this completely ignores the complex human emotions of worship and suffereing, the deep theological significance of God's sovereignty, and the philosophical exploration of evil and injustice. Within the first two chapters of the book, Job loses his children, his land, his wealth, and his health and is faced with the crucial question of whether or not he will still treat God as sovereign over his life. I fear how I would respond to the same trial. It is easy for me to write off his wife as a faithless fool, or his friends as hard-headed simpletons, but if I were to really put myself in the shoes of any one of them, I don't know if I would act any differently. And that is why the drama of Job is so important to life. Are we willing to accept God's sovereignty and goodness over both the good things that happen to us and the bad? The plight of Job is really the plight of all of us and the point of his story is not to teach us to suffer well, but teach us to keep God sovereign.

Lord Jesus, help us to hold your lordship in all circumstances and worship you for both the good and the bad!

Here for a Purpose

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”” Esther 4:14

Not only are we all born, but we are all born into a particular time and place. With that time and place comes a social, political, and cultural context, along with a religious need and most importantly, a section of God's redemptive story. As a result, none of us can remain idle or indifferent to the time and place in which we exist. For example, Esther was born into a culture of Exile, but also placed in a position of power and influence. On top of that, her background, her position of power, and the influence she carried with her made her a prime candidate to help in God's redemptive story. She was in a position to save many Jews from being exterminated within the Persian empire. Although many of us may never carry the position or influence that Esther had, or face the dire circumstances she faced, every single one of us who are born again into Christ are born into the history of Christ's redemption. God will accomplish his purposes with or without us, but why would we pass up on the opportunity to make an eternal impact and serve what God is doing in the world? We were all born with a particular context and we have the amazing choice to be used by God in that context or to be passed over. What is it that God is calling you to? What part of his story is he asking you to play? We may find it difficult to follow God in all circumstances and it may seem that ignoring his call is the safer bet. And to the world, it may be. But we will all write a story with our lives in the end, and all of those stories will eventually end with our deaths. Since we will all end up the same, it seems to make more sense to at least write a good story with our lives. God's story of redemption is the greatest narrative in the world and beyond. I choose to be a part of his story, do you?

Lord Jesus, give us the strength to answer your call and live in accordance with time and culture you placed us in. Give us courage and faith to take part in your redemption!

Freedom from Oppression

“I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.” Nehemiah 5:6

One of the indicators of the place Christ holds in my heart is what things make me angry. When criticism or blocked expectations quickly set me off, or when I get upset that things don't go my way, or someone disagrees with me, that's usually an indication that Christ is not at the center of my life. On the other hand, anger in and of itself, is not wrong. In fact, there are things in this world that should make us angry. Nehemiah, after returning to Jerusalem to oversee the building of the wall, witnesses his people exacting interest from the poor among them and making other Jews sell themselves and their children into slavery to pay for the debt incurred. When Nehemiah observed this, he got angry. The oppression of his people by his people was too much for him to ignore. So he got angry. I'll get angry if I'm supposed to meet someone for something and they don't show up, but do I ever get angry at the oppression of my neighbors by my neighbors? Do I get angry at the drug trafficking that keeps poor people addicted to meth? Am I infuriated by the excessive spending done by churches while people literally one block are starving? Does it bother me when laws are passed that tear apart families and make it illegal to feed or clothe or shelter people in need just because they are an undocumented immigrant? Oppression is something that righteous men get angry about. When Jesus entered the temple and saw money lenders and merchants charging interest and overcharging for sacrifices, Jesus got angry. It seems there is a mistake in thinking that Christian maturity means never getting angry. The truth is, we should be angry, just not about the things we're typically mad about.

Lord Jesus, give us an anger towards oppression and sin. Fill us with disdain towards those things that plague your compassion!