“How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him? Though I were innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my Judge for mercy. Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. He would not let me catch my breath but would overwhelm me with misery.”Job 9:14-18
James Houston, a spiritual giant, once said to a friend of mine, "I desire to be a Christian, but in spite of that I desire to be honest." What I love about Job is that he is brutally honest. I have found at times, it is difficult to be honest with myself or others about my own attitudes toward God. For much of my late teens and early twenties I was angry with God for having allowed my father to taken from me by Alzheimer's. I didn't talk about it. Looking back now I realize that I felt I lacked faith, that a "good Christian" wouldn't feel they way that I did. And so I curved inward, allowing my anger and hurt to leak out in behavior rather than honest conversation.
I desire to be Christian, but in spite of that I desire to be honest. Job can teach us a great deal about faith and honesty. He comes to God and his friends openly, wounds bared. He didn't stuff them down or keep silent. If you search the scriptures, you will find example after example of complaint towards God. Almost half of the Psalms carry this tone. It is anger, fear, complaint directed toward God, rather than about God, that can be a powerful statement of faith.
Have you ever felt that God was ignoring you? Or even further, that he was out to get you? Though we know in our head that this certainly is not the case, our perspective of the present circumstance gives us this creeping suspicion that we simply have lost God's favor, just like Job. The main question of the book of Job is not the ever popular "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" The real question behind Job is, "do people only worship God for rewards and blessings?"
The good news in all of this is that God has plenty of room for our honesty with him. The state of our heart doesn't surprise him in the least. I remember the first time I admitted to God that I was angry with him about my dad. It was like the lid was taken off of my heart and I boiled over. At the end of my anger and rage I began to cry my first tears about him that weren't soaked in unspoken resentment. I cried and felt sad... and really knew that God was beside me.
Who do you know that is suffering? We can help create the space for them to be honest. let us listen without judgement, without trying to "fix" them or the situation and reflect back God's presence.
May God grant us his perspective in difficult days and give us the courage to be honest with him and ourselves in all seasons of Life.
In Jesus' Name
Amen
