Saturday, April 14: Job 3- honest and faith-filled .

Pain… acknowledging pain. I would never want to endure what Job endured. The relational and physical torment of chapters 1 and 2 are beyond my words as I write.

Here is Job living them. His words drip with honesty. My entire body resonates with Job.

Immediately I thought, here is a man who is honest and faith-filled. Never once does he curse God. Question God, certainly. How could one not have questions for God? And even more, every reference to God has an honoring tone. Job is a man who knows, understands his place and understands his God.

I have met too many people –sisters and brothers in Jesus –who are not able to be this honest with their Lord as they endure trials. Some plaster a false spirituality on their faces and their words drip with clichés but no substance. When I hear them, the word DENIAL scrolls in my mind.

Others lash out at God, which in my opinion, can be more honest than the former. However, their words drip with anger that teeters on or falls off the cliff of blasphemy and taking the Lord's name in vain. God can handle this but blasphemy and using the Lord's name wrongly is still sin.

Job somehow remains, between these two extremes, a model for me of suffering faithfully.

I am not in a time of suffering, so much of my gleanings is 'theoretical' but may they be stored till such a time as I need to lean on them to remain faithful to my Lord God.

Questions for God, absolutely. I will go so far as to say questions with an edge… Anger, too, is human, natural and okay. The word does say "In your anger do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26).

The text gives us Job's guard rail last chapter for not sinning, He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said (2:10). Job did not sin because Job did not curse God or take God's name in vain… in sound or in thought because sins of thought are just as much sin as sins of speech.  

Well, Lord, I hope and pray that I never experience 1/10 of what Job lived through, but Lord that is in Your hand. I surrender to You. And I pray that in good times or horrible times I may be faithful to You and that my life, like Job's, might be a positive witness to You. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.