“It’s not you I’m complaining to—it’s God. Is it any wonder I’m getting fed up with his silence? Take a good look at me. Aren’t you appalled by what’s happened? No! Don’t say anything. I can do without your comments. When I look back, I go into shock, my body is racked with spasms. Why do the wicked have it so good, live to a ripe old age and get rich? They get to see their children succeed, get to watch and enjoy their grandchildren. Their homes are peaceful and free from fear; they never experience God’s disciplining rod. Their bulls breed with great vigor and their cows calve without fail. They send their children out to play and watch them frolic like spring lambs. They make music with fiddles and flutes, have good times singing and dancing. They have a long life on easy street, and die painlessly in their sleep. They say to God, ‘Get lost! We’ve no interest in you or your ways. Why should we have dealings with God Almighty? What’s there in it for us?’ But they’re wrong, dead wrong—they’re not gods. It’s beyond me how they can carry on like this!
Job 10:2The MessageJob prayed: “Here’s what I want to say: Don’t, God, bring in a verdict of guilty without letting me know the charges you’re bringing. How does this fit into what you once called ‘good’— giving me a hard time, spurning me, a life you shaped by your very own hands, and then blessing the plots of the wicked? You don’t look at things the way we mortals do. You’re not taken in by appearances, are you? Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out. So what’s this all about, anyway—this compulsion to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet? You know good and well I’m not guilty. You also know no one can help me. See the chapter |
20 Cross References
Oh, God, my Lord, step in; work a miracle for me—you can do it! Get me out of here—your love is so great!— I’m at the end of my rope, my life in ruins. I’m fading away to nothing, passing away, my youth gone, old before my time. I’m weak from hunger and can hardly stand up, my body a rack of skin and bones. I’m a joke in poor taste to those who see me; they take one look and shake their heads.
With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.