April 23

Read Job 8

“You’re getting what you deserve.” This summarizes Bildad’s perspective on Job’s suffering.
“God will not reject a person of integrity, nor will he lend a hand to the wicked.”
All true. But lest we forget, Job is in this pickle because he was a person of whom God said, “He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless – a man of complete integrity.” Take that Bildad.

I wonder if sometimes we avoid a fourth step because, like Bildad, we are certain that anything we unearth will reveal “all that we lack” (to quote Sarah Mclaughlin). This is wrong. Although we like to tie up suffering in neat bundles of clarity – it doesn’t work that way. God’s ways are beyond our ability to comprehend. There is a God, and we did not get the job. There is more going on in the unseen world than we know.

God has plans for us – to prosper us, to give us a hope and a future. How that looks is God’s design – not necessarily in accordance with our desires. Know this – we can have a life of contentment, prosperity, hope and future – by God’s definition. If we have effectively claimed a third step (turning our life and will over to the care and control of God) we have already made the decision to do life God’s way.

So get busy. Do that fourth step inventory.

Thought for today: Sometimes suffering is the pathway to peace. Avoiding suffering can lead us off the pathway and get us stuck in a ditch. Bildad implies that Job’s problem has to be bad behaving. But there’s another issue that Bildad hasn’t even given a voice to – sometimes what we think of as doing good is really not. For example, sometimes we prefer taking care of others more than accepting responsibility for ourselves.

Frankly, it’s easier to get distracted by other people’s needs than it is to step up to the plate and take ownership of our own issues. Code words: going co-dependent, no core identity, desire to feel useful and indispensable, feeling responsible ‘for’ (rather than ‘to’), rescuing. Ask God to show you examples of “godly” caretaking that is really not godly at all…

I take care of ____ because ____. This affects ____. This activates ____. This makes me feel ____.


Thought for tomorrow: If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. James 1:5 NIV