Devotion for Wednesday 28 July
Dear Readers and Listeners, Friends in Jesus Christ,
Our watchword for today is taken from the Book of Job, Chapter 12 verse 10, “In God’s hand is the life of every living thing,” (NRSVB). The story of Job is a narrative of consolation. In these times we live in, we need to find comfort and consolation, for we experience that the world as we have been accustomed to, is fast changing. Job experienced rapid change in the circumstances of his life on all fronts. A messenger arrived to tell him that the Sabaeans attacked and took all his donkeys and killed his servants. While this messenger was still speaking, another messenger arrived to tell that lightning hit and killed all the flocks and shepherds. Before this messenger completed his account, a next one arrived to tell that the Chaldeans made a raid on all the camels and killed the servants. Then a messenger arrived and told Job that a whirlwind came and destroyed the house where all his sons and daughters were celebrating and they were killed. Job rent his robe and shaved his head and went into mourning, saying: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord,” Job 1 verse 22, (Amplified Bible). Then Job suffered disease that covered him with painful sores from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head. His wife was indignant that he continued to bless the Lord and to profess that he was an upright man. She told him to renounce God and submit to death. He answered her, “Shall we accept only good at the hand of God and shall we not also accept misfortune?” His three friends came and in sat quiet consolation and comforted him as they silently paid their condolences. Job then spoke and mourned the day he was born and the situation he was in. He questioned why God allowed these calamities to befall on him as he lived uprightly before God.
The three friends then launched into their respective understanding of who God is and what he does. Instead of their words comforting Job, these drove him further into despair and desolation. The more he pleaded his innocence, the more they suggested possible wrong-doing on the side of Job. Job grew exasperated and said to them, “No doubt you are the only wise people in the world, and wisdom will die with you!” (Job Chapter 12 verse 2, Amplified Bible). Then he confessed his faith in God’s ways and plans and in God’s authority over death and life. Only when the three friends were quiet and ceased to try and interpret God regarding the suffering of Job, and Job’s right-standing with God, then, God came and spoke to Job. Out of the whirlwind came God’s voice and Job heard and understood through God’s own revelation, that God was present in his temptation and his suffering. God was suffering with Job, leading him to an even greater experience of God’s care and grace. God restored Job and the presence of his friends, after he had prayed for them. God said to the friends that they did not speak of God and his plans and purposes correctly, however, the righteous Job would intercede in prayer for them. Job prayed and interceded for his friends in the presence of God, while he was still afflicted. It was only after his prayer that God turned Job’s mourning into rejoicing.
When people are suffering, it seems as if the way of coming to terms with it, is to find a cause and then to appropriate guilt. It is a strange way of the world that the sufferer seems to become the perpetrator, instead of the victim of the suffering. God knows his creatures and their suffering. He is mindful that their hurt and pain are caused by means quite beyond their power to fight and overcome. The world wants us to identify the guilty and punish them, or to berate ourselves unendingly, trying to rectify something that we might have done wrong. God came to this world to show us the truth, through the Light of the World, giving us bread and water of life. We are not able to understand the full impact of what we say or do on earth, we are not guilty of the things that have happened on the earth before we were even walking this earth. Sickness and disease, life and death, whirlwind and hurricane, lightning and rain, drought and storms, they are not of our making. God is the maker of dust-man and dust-women, he knows their frailty and he loves them for it. He sees how they suffer and still come to him and praise and bless him. He bows down to them and affirms his love and care, despite the ways and woes of this world.
God has created us in his image and he has blown his breath into every human being, their lives and their hopes and fears are immensely important to him. He sent his Son to rid humanity of all their guilt and anguish regarding their own complicity in the human condition. Through Jesus Christ, God has given us his eternal and triumphant “Yes” pronounced over our lives. Instead of condemnation and being thrown aside, doomed to the dumpster of despair, we are raised up from the ashes to receive beauty. The Apostle Paul, in his sermon on Mars Hill, inspired all who worship this unknown God, and gave them hope, stating that He might be unknown to them, but they are most definitely not unknown to Him. “In him we live and move and have our being,” Acts Chapter 17 verse 28, (NRSVB).
Father, we thank you that we are known to you. Your plans and purposes are to bless and bring all to a place of peace and rest, where they can accept from your hand life, life abundant, with you, Amen.
