Job 12:1-14:22

Wow!  Where does the day go?  I got my reading done earlier and started work on this post, but then the day got away from me and I never got to finish and publish.

Here are some observations I take from this passage on Job's response:

1. Job is getting fed up with his friends: here he actually responds scornfully and directly to their attacks, calling them "the people" and suggesting that wisdom will die out when they go.  He acknowledges he's the laughing stock of his friends, but he reminds them that he is not inferior and that it's easy for them to judge from their easy positions.  Essentially, Job is getting fed up, and who can blame him?  These friends have shown their true colors.
2. Job does not deny and even defends the sovereignty of God.  He has never argued this point or that God will act as He sees fit.  However, we're beginning to see that Job is starting to assert more the aspect that God does not discriminate based on status, fortune, or character: He will bring calamity to whom he will: good, bad, or indifferent.  Still, Job also asserts God's sound wisdom, so who is to question?
3. Job is again talking about preparing "his case" (ch. 13).  Have you noticed that he often uses legal jargon when referring to the discussion that he hopes to have with God?  He would argue his case with God (13:3, 18).  What does he really want to argue?  Why this happened.  Why did God allow this disaster to befall Job, he who has always been upright in everything he said and did?  He wants to know what his sins might have been that he would be judged like this, because he still holds to his integrity.  What does God have against him?
4. Yet Job has little hope that he could defend himself before the Almighty.  In 14:13 he hopes that God might come to remember him at some point, but that hope is giving way to despair.  At the end of chapter 14, he talks about how a man will pass away, come to honor and then to ruin, and God does not seem to regard at all.

Aren't we often like that?  Don't we come across some misfortune and wonder why it had to happen?  Why did we have to lose our job?  Why did we have to move?  Why did our loved one have to become so sick?  Why is life not fair?  We want to know why God has brought us to various calamities and we become frustrated when the answer is not readily obvious, even doubtful.   Trials have a specific place in the life of the believer, though, even if we don't always know the specific why's and wherefore's of each one.  Romans 5:2-5 says, "Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."  (Emphasis mine.)  Yes, folks.  Believers are supposed to rejoice in their sufferings, and this isn't the only place where we hear about that.  We're not guaranteed a packaged, happy little life.  Quite the opposite.  When the hard times come, though, we have a greater hope: these trials will produce in us good and hope, and our hope does not disappoint.  I recently experienced with my husband some financial difficulties that stressed. Me. OUT.  I knew we'd been led into them by God and there were times I wondered if the blows would never stop.  But I know what that time did for me: I have never been more deeply rooted in prayer, more expectant in watching God work, or even more vigilant in waiting for Him to do so.  And He did!  And He's still working.  And, hopefully, I've gained in endurance for when the next trial hits.

Hang in there, Job.  We all know how this ends, even if you don't, yet.  Your day is coming.

Tomorrow's Reading: Job 15:1-35