"Angry at God?" January 6 Readings: Job 11-14

Today's Reading - Job 11-14

Background

As the first cycle of debate ends, Job's blood pressure is beginning to rise. Zophar the Zealous confronts Job with his black-and-white worldview. Stop babbling, Job. Repent and everything will be fine.

Each one of Job's speeches shows an escalating anger. In this long diatribe (chapters 12-14), Job demonstrates that his despair has begun to turn to anger.

Devotional

Angry at God?

If you were raised in the church you would never admit that, would you? But I have found myself there a few times. We call it discouragement, disappointment, or even depression, but often the root of it is a feeling that God has not done what he should. I walked with God. I prayed. I served God. I did everything I was supposed to, but God has not kept up his end of the bargain.

I have experienced it - a deep anger in my soul, a feeling of betrayal and hurt. Why, God? Why? Where are you? I've gone through times in my life when I was mad at God - deep in my heart. I might not have admitted it to myself, but that is where I was. Angry. Upset. Hurt. Why, God?

The root is always my mistaken sense of what God should do. When he does not act as I think he should act, do as I think he should do, respond as I think he should respond, I get angry. The problem is not with God but with my expectations.

Job's "friends" dropped the hammer on him, blaming him for his suffering. Job grew increasingly angry, first at his friends, then at the God they proclaimed. When we proclaim lies about God we sponsor anger against God based on those lies. blamed him and said that his problems were his own fault, God's punishment for his sin, Job began to lose hope and lose perspective. He was growing angry at God. There were two things that Job knew.

1) He knew that God was in control and that what was happening to him was not outside of God's sovereign work.

Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this? Job 12:9

Though Satan was the agent of the destruction, God permitted the suffering for his own reasons and never shirked responsibility. We ought never assume when we suffer that somehow Satan did an end-run around the plan of God. Job did well to remember that God is in charge in this world.

2) But he had forgotten the goodness of God!

He had lost sight of the fact that the sovereign God is also the good God. 

Whatever he tears down cannot be rebuilt;
whoever he imprisons cannot be released. When he withholds water, everything dries up,
and when he releases it, it destroys the land. Job 12:14-15

The God he had joyfully worshiped is now a God who "tears down" and "imprisons." He dries things up and destroys. Read verses 16-25. God does, at times, bring the haughty to nothing and judge the wicked. The problem here is that Job now sees God as capricious, as One who enjoys inflicting pain.  

Life sometimes makes it hard to balance these truths. God is God and God is good. He is both the sovereign ruler of this world and loving. Sometimes, circumstances make it hard to believe both. Anger caused Job to lose faith and stop holding on to the goodness of God. We must believe that even when we cannot see it. 

Faith is not about avoiding difficult circumstances but about trusting God regardless of what we see in this world. It is about holding on to our confidence in the love and goodness of God even when life screams to us that God has abandoned us. He is a good shepherd, a faithful friend, a loving Father. 

I look back on times when I walked the path of Job, when I lost faith and began to question the goodness of God. Now I can see how foolish it was, how God was still at work even though I couldn't understand it at the time. The key is to believe that before I see it!

Father, next time, help me to trust you and remember that you are good, even when I cannot see it!

Think and Pray

When hard times come, do you feel abandoned by God, or do you hold on by faith even when you cannot see what God is doing?
Never let circumstances speak louder than the word of God.