Job 10-15...a case of he said Job said

The book of Job continues with dialogues between Job and his friends. Thrown in between though are a couple of pleas from Job to God.

Throughout these chapters, Job still avoids cursing God. At one point he is questioning God as to why he would do such things, but always follows it up with a "but you know best God..." This seems to be another parallel to the rhetoric of Jesus. Jesus seemed to struggle with his role as a savior, but always said "let God's will be done."

Job's friends on the other hand clearly don't like Job's attitude. They continue to call him out, telling him that God punishes the wicked, somehow implying that Job is a hypocrite and must be secretly prideful and sinful behind closed doors. Job continually replies to them that they should either just hang out with him and comfort him, or leave. He then typically goes into a speech about how great God is.

Job's friends are clearly made uncomfortable by his complete faith in God. While on the surface the book of Job is a great story about how to trust that God has a plan, perhaps it also provides a subtler lesson. Perhaps it is a mirror into our own lives as we so often seem to play the role of the friends, doubting the faith of others or failing to give in completely to God's will as Job does. Putting our complete faith in trust in God is difficult. Quite often it means swimming upstream from the rest of society.

Remember back to Molly's post about the inner voice. The inner voice doesn't just remind us to pick up a candy wrapper or do the dishes. It is capable of so much more, but we cannot doubt it or it will go away. The inner voice is kind of like a little child tugging on your leg wanting to show you something. If you ignore it long enough, it will just go away. Conversely though, if you allow that child to show you things, it will develop more and begin to show you more. The inner voice, like that child, will start small with candy wrappers and dishes, but will also influence greater decisions as we let it. It is one of our most basic and primal instincts. It is the way that God lets us see the path to improvement, even if it is uncomfortable. If God does have a plan for all of us, then he shows us the path through our instincts...but it only works if we have complete faith in God. We must believe 100% in our decisions, or they will fall short. When God shows us the way, we must jump trusting that he will provide a net for us. This is obviously easier said than done. After all, even Job's closest friends doubted him. From personal experience, I can 100% say that I have never regretted a decision when trusting my instincts. Instinctual decisions led me to my wife and ultimately my children, and I thank God for putting that inner voice in my head every day.