My Birthday Blog

Scripture: "Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers. He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more." Job 8:20-22

Observation: Bildad offers Job an explanation for his suffering, namely that Job must have done wrong and his suffering is a punishment from God. He asserts that truly righteous people will not suffer and truly unrighteous people will be punished. Yet Job will argue and ultimately reject this counsel as unbiblical. He will arrive at this conclusion: God and God alone dictates the course of people's lives.

Bildad's counsel is sound in every way except one: it is unbiblical. Logically, religiously, ethically, we expect karma. Good gets blessed and evil gets punished. So if we see blessing or punishment, then we should be able to assume good or evil. But that is not always the case. Sometimes suffering befalls good believers. Sometimes grace and patience comes to evil doers. The bottom line is that God's ways are higher than our ways.

Application: I like to live in a world where blessing and punishment are clearly connected to my behavior. That if I work hard enough and live good enough, I can control my own destiny. That I can avoid pain if I try hard enough. But that was not true for Job and it is not true for me. Yes, generally blessing comes to the righteous and difficulty to the unrighteous, but I must trust God in what he deems He needs to bring my way. This is true in my own life and in the life of my church. I need to be careful about assigning reasons behind why some gins have or have not happened. Without blaming God, I must ultimately trust God and seek him and submit to him.

Prayer: Make me like Job and not Bildad. Help me submit to your sovereignty in my life and model that to others, rather than go down Bildad's blaming road. Help me shift my trust from my own ability to secure your blessing to your ability to decide what is best for me.