Today’s Readings: Job 35-36
In place of Elihu, substitute the name of your best friend. Imagine that you have just had the worst day of your life. It is worse than any episode of the current hit 24. You have lost your wife and your kids and now a dreaded disease has invaded your body! And your best friend comes to you and begins to ask you “twenty questions.”
“Does this kind of thing make any sense? …See those clouds towering above you? If you sin, what difference could that make to God? No matter how much you sin, will it matter to Him? Even if you’re good, what would God get out of that? Do you think he’s dependent on your accomplishments? … So why would he notice you just because you say you’re tired of waiting to be heard, or waiting for him to get good and angry and something about the world’s problems?” (The Message)
And all you wanted was a little empathy. You wanted your friend to “walk a mile in your moccasins.” But instead, here he is lecturing you. Have you ever had a day like that? He uttered many truths about God’s attributes and about your frailties. But where is his love and compassion. He tells you, “But now you are being punished like the wicked; you are getting justice (36:17 – NCV). Would he be willing to carry your cross on his back as Simon did on that long slow death march called, in later years the Via Dolorosa, the “way of suffering,” for Jesus?
Thanks for reading with me, dear friend and I trust that you have had a blessed day!
–Randy Sexton