If it is a contest of Strength, Behold He is Mighty…

In Job 9:19, Job says “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?”

Job is so truthful. He doesn’t pretend to understand God or presume to have all knowledge. He regards God within his shattered life and speaks in his uncomfort, honestly stating that he loathes his life. His whole family has died and his body is taken over by disease. Satan’s goal is to get Job to curse God- so he takes away all that Job has been blessed with.

In Job 1:11, Satan says to God, “But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” God agrees to let Satan test Job, “And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”

In Job chapter 9, Job speaks as though he is in a battle with God. In all of his suffering, he acknowledges God’s total supremacy and power. When Job says, “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?” He knows that his own strength is not stronger than God’s. He knows that God is completely just in all his ways, the ultimate and most perfect judge.

Job goes on in chapter 10 to be even more real and vulnerable, “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1)

It is clear from reading in Job that God wants something from us. He doesn’t want our good deeds or our perfect satisfaction at all times- but our broken hearts pleading before him- acknowledging our frailty and inability to help ourselves. He wants us to be so broken that we cry out to him- like Job. And he wants us to cry out in honesty, in fear of God, in belief that he is real and powerful. How comforting to know that God, in his wisdom, included broken people filled with calamity, sin, and bitterness in the bible. We can be comforted because it is these very type of people that can still have relationship with the God of the Universe, who can cry out to him in the midst of despair.

In chapter 7, Job is hopeless. He believes his life is ruined and that there is no hope of redemption or restoration. He’s basically expecting death. He says in Job 7:11, “Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” He goes on in verses 13- 16, “When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint, then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.”

Job sees his sickness and despair. Rather than hoping in the eternity after his death, he is expecting death to take him and end it all. It is a hopeless plight. Even so, he is honest in his despair, which allows me to feel freedom to be honest in my own despair.

Bildad speaks in Chapter 8 that Job should repent of his hopelessness. He encourages Job in verses 8:5-7, “If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. And though your beginning is small, your latter days will be very great.” Verse 12 says, “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.”

There is so much hope for Job in his most lowly hours! Is there not the same hope for us in our most lonely, most terrified, most beaten, most bruised, most ungodly, most helpless hours?

In the beginning of Job, Job thinks he is righteous on his own, that he is without sin. But God reveals to him that he is sinful and Job begins to have understanding. Job 13: 23, “How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.” He believes in God’s redemption, in his power to remove our sin… “For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.”

God can cover over our iniquity when we cry out to him, in raw emotion and despair. We can trust him to remove all our sin and to promise us better days ahead. We can talk to God in anger, in despair, in untrust, in disbelief- and hope that he can restore us and mark us with redemption and total forgiveness and blessing.

Job’s faith is contagious. I want to be real with God like Job. I want to learn to hope in God through my own struggles and despair.

Isn’t it great? We can come to God as we are. He is stronger than we are and powerful enough to break our addictions and patterns of crap in our lives.

I am so hopeful today.