Year 2, Day 107: Job 13

If Only We Could Know God Face to Face

In this chapter, Job begins by stating a desire to make his case before God rather than having to make his case before human beings.  I find this thought incredibly profound today – especially as someone who often tries to help people in their understanding of God and their relationship with God.  Job clearly indicates that his friends are doing a poor job of representing God.

That really makes a lot of sense.  Since beginning the book of Job, I’ve frequently spoken about how we cannot understand God.  We cannot know His plans.  None of us truly knows the outcome of any particular action or event.  Because of this, we need to be very careful when we speak on God’s behalf.  The last thing that we want to do is to come and try to help and only become a noisy gong beating out senseless and unhelpful advice.  Even worse, we certainly don’t want to try and help a person and end up driving them further from God!

We Think More Highly of Our Righteousness Than We Ought

Then Job spends a good deal of time talking about why he would speak with God.  While I cannot condone the fact that Job seems to desire to contend with God, neither can I say that I have never been there, either.  I know – I think we all know – what it is to be at a place in our life where we desire to have an in-depth conversation with God where we plan of chewing Him out.  When I wrote those words, I understood the absurdity of them.  But just because I think them absurd now doesn’t mean that I haven’t ever been there in my life, either.

Furthermore, there is actually a good side of desiring to contend with God.  Often this world teaches us to disbelieve what we cannot understand.  This world would tell us that if we cannot understand why God would allow us to be in a certain circumstance then we should disbelieve God’s goodness or His sovereignty.  However, that is not what Job is doing here.  Job is not disbelieving anything about God, he is simply seeking answers.  Job wants to contend with God to get the ugliness out of himself – and perhaps find something better to fill himself than with the ugliness.

We should want to seek out the Lord and seek out answers from His wisdom.  Certainly we should really strive to do that in a way that does not pit us antagonistically against God.  However, better to desire to contend with God than to disbelieve in Him altogether!  Better to get the badness out than to keep it in, believe in it, and find our relationship with God dwindling.

Hope

I am likewise touched by Job’s words in Job 13:15-16.  Here Job is talking about hope.  Notice what Job says in verse 15.  Even if God should slay him, Job will still find hope in Him.  This is really a deep and profound thought.  Even if God should ultimately be the cause of Job’s death, that will not change Job’s relationship with God.  Now that is impressive faith!  Here is a man who truly has put all of his hope in God.  Job is telling us that there is nothing that can happen – even at the hand of God – that will change how Job views his relationship with God.

Sure, Job might want to contend with God.  Job might want a piece of God’s mind.  But that doesn’t mean that Job’s relationship with God is going to be any different.  He is salvation; we are the saved.  Nothing will change that dynamic for Job.

Have you ever noticed that there are two – well, at least two – kinds of Christians?  There are the fair-weather Christians and there are the all-weather Christians.  There are some people who make time for God when things are going well, but when a little persecution comes their way or their schedule gets tight you don’t see them involved in their faith anymore.  Then there are the people that when life gets tough they increase their involvement in their faith life.  In these verses Job is making it clear that he is an all-weather Christian.  Nothing in this life can make Job lose his foundation with God.  The more persecution comes his way, the more Job will trust in God.

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