April 24

Read Job 9 and 10
I love Job. I love how truthful he is. I love the messiness of his honesty. I love how he doesn’t feel ite necessary to butter up God. He’s able to express how he feels – about himself, his circumstances, his theology – the entire enchilada.

Job has some things going for him that you and I may lack. Job has a history of relationship with God. Chapters one and two are proof of the intimacy between Job and God. And there’s a lot to commend Job for in terms of his knowledge of who God is and how God operates. In my Life Recovery Bible, the commentator makes a great point in Chapter nine. “Job knew more than he understood. He knew about God’s sovereignty and justice and that no man is blameless when seen in the light of god’s perfection. What he didn’t understand is that God is merciful and that it is only by grace that we do not receive our deserved fates, which would be far worse than

Job’s sufferings. When we feel that God isn’t being fair, we should remember that if he were, we would never be able to enter his presence. When god is ‘unfair,’ it is always on the side of mercy.”

Aren’t we all like that? We tend to know more than we understand. For example, a woman
may know that adultery is seriously not cool, but I wonder if she understands the impact if she follows through and commits adultery. Does she understand that her children may never be able to work through the betrayals and heartaches that will inevitably arise when the affair is discovered? In ten or fifteen years, will she understand why her son is unable to commit in a relationship? Does she understand that her adultery makes it harder for her spouse to take ownership of his own shortcomings in the marriage? Does she understand that her daughter may be suspicious and distrustful around even the nicest guy in the world? No. She may not.

Nor will she grasp the doubling of this tragedy if her affair is with another married man. It might be too painful to both know and understand the will of God as it applies to her choices. And that is also true for us.

I want to encourage you to take seriously the implications of your choices. I hope you will acknowledge to yourself and God that your knowledge and your understanding may be worlds apart. Speaking what we know without understanding what we’re missing produces about the same results as if we didn’t have any knowledge at all!

Thought for today: One compelling reason that I continue to make fearless moral inventories is because I have a healthy respect for my own capacity to be deceived. Denial is a powerful enemy. My hope is in the revelation of the truth to me by the Holy Spirit. I hope that I can allow God to transform me now, so that I won’t continue to harm myself and others AND that I can change so that no future harm is caused that could have been prevented. I hope this for you, too.

Thought for tomorrow: Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT