Read: Job 8-10
Focus Verse: “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.” (Job 9:33-35).
Devotion: The second friend, Bildad, speaks up to offer advice and makes a few assumptions about Jobs’ situation. 1: Job’s children sinned and that’s why they died (8:4), 2: that Job isn’t seeking God earnestly (8:5), and 3: That Job has forgotten God (8:13). These reinforce the prevailing view of God at the time; that is, good=prosperity but bad=death/destruction. However, the narrative feels us from the beginning that isn’t the case with Job, and is actually attempting to reshape how we understand God. “It is all the same; that is why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’” (Job 9:22). For Job it isn’t God’s plan, it isn’t that he’s wicked, there isn’t any reason behind what’s happened to him. Job puts in perspective that all people suffer despite God’s goodness. No one is immune to sadness and pain in this life. I suspect the rest of the book of Job will help us now to put the pieces back together to understand this better and see how God’s love and goodness wins in the end. But Job does give us hints of that here. How can a mere human come before God to argue with God? Job thinks if only he had an advocate to mediate then he would be able to restore relationship with God and approach God to ask about his case. Like Job we see in life that it doesn’t matter how good or bad we are, we all experience heartache and pain. So often we want to go to God and say “WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS!?” That’s what Job wants to do, and he doesn’t have someone in his corner to back him up, but we do! That mediator for us is Jesus Christ, and through his imprisonment, torture, and death on a cross he knows all too profoundly what pain and suffering feel like. Jesus has become our mediator, he has become someone who restores the relationship with God so that even in our pain and doubt we can still walk with God and be filled with love and peace. So when we experience pain in life, and we will, will we leave God or will we run to the advocate to lay our pain at the foot of the cross?
Pray: LORD thank you for the advocates of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit so that we can come before you with our pain and know that you feel it with us. God we know that when we are in pain it isn’t you torturing us or showing us consequences for our wickedness, we know that in life things happen and in a broken world there will inevitably be pain. So God we thank you for being with us in our pain and we pray that you stay in relationship with us as we mourn and process through our pain. Thank you for your unending patience unlike Job’s friends! Amen!
Additional Scripture: “Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace.” (Colossians 3:15)