Devotions
Fjeldberg – Devotion for October 8, 2024
READ (Job 10:2-7)
Job prayed: “Here’s what I want to say: Don’t, God, bring in a verdict of guilty without letting me know the charges you’re bringing. How does this fit into what you once called ‘good’— giving me a hard time, spurning me, a life you shaped by your very own hands, and then blessing the plots of the wicked? You don’t look at things the way we mortals do. You’re not taken in by appearances, are you? Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline. You have all the eternity to work things out. So, what’s this all about, anyway— this compulsion to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet? You know good and well I’m not guilty. You also know no one can help me.
REFLECT
This translation is in “modern” language. When Job says “Don’t” he is saying that to God. He is telling God to restrict God’s actions. Job is ragging on God, telling him what to do. Job has his own way of looking at what God should be doing. Just in case God wouldn’t know what to do, Job reminds God of all the creativity, sweat and tears that goes into creating a person. Job questions God’s apparent actions of support for those who Job knows are not as “faithful” as Job is. Job wants God to admit that Job is better than the others. Job recognizes that God’s way is not the way of most people. He realizes that God has a different way of dealing with people. God loves in spite of, rather than because we deserve it. But Job still wants God to do what Job thinks is the fair way. He says, don’t make it so difficult God. Job uses his way of thinking to construct a rational for us that allows us to turn our back on God’s love.
In contrast, Jesus tells us to love exactly as He has loved us. Be willing to die for those who we do not like.
How many of us deflect God’s call by turning troubling things in our lives into excuses?
PRAY: Lord, help us to know that you are in charge of all that happens, and that if we live in your love we will experience the world in the perfection which you created. In the love of Jesus. Amen
Devotions by Sue B.