Thursday, May 22, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Job 13-15
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 59
Key Verse
Job 14:15 — “Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.”
Devotional Thought
Job has lost his children, his herds, and his health, and now he sits on an ash heap scraping his sores with a potsherd while three friends lecture him. In Job 13–15 the argument reaches a breaking point. Job turns from Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to speak directly to God: “Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God” (13:3). He calls his friends “forgers of lies” and “physicians of no value,” and he says the wisest thing they could do is keep silent. Then comes one of the boldest lines in all Scripture: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (13:15). Job does not pretend to understand. He simply refuses to let go of God while he argues with God.
From there Job sinks into the deepest question of human existence. He looks at a fallen tree and sees hope—”through the scent of water it will bud” (14:9)—but he looks at a dying man and asks, “If a man die, shall he live again?” (14:14). He longs for the grave to be a hiding place until God’s wrath passes and God remembers him again. It is a cry for resurrection, spoken centuries before the empty tomb. Then Eliphaz answers a second time, and his answer is colder than his first. He accuses Job of casting off fear, of being born before the hills, of drinking iniquity like water (15:16). He describes the wicked man as one who “travaileth with pain all his days”—and by implication, he places Job in that category. The friends begin with sympathy and end with suspicion.
Psalm 59 gives us the same posture in song. David, surrounded by enemies who “belch out with their mouth” and have “swords in their lips,” does not stop waiting on God: “Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence” (59:9). And he resolves, “I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning” (59:16). Job could not sing yet. But he could still speak to God, and that is its own kind of faith.
Most of us will spend some May morning carrying a burden that well-meaning people cannot fix. The lesson of Job is not that suffering has a tidy explanation. It is that honest lament is not unbelief, and that a man can say, “Let come on me what will,” and still cling to the God who seems to have hidden His face. The tree cut down may yet sprout at the scent of water. Wait till your change comes.
Reflection
- When friends offer “physicians of no value,” do you keep speaking to God anyway—or do you let their poor counsel silence your prayers?
- Job asked, “If a man die, shall he live again?” How does the resurrection of Christ answer the question Job could only wait on?
Prayer
O Lord, our defence and the God of our mercy, we come to You as Job came—wounded, confused, and without a tidy explanation for our sorrow. Teach us to speak honestly to You rather than to carry our grief in silence, and give us grace to trust You even when You seem to hide Your face. Guard us from speaking wickedly on Your behalf or adding to the burden of the afflicted. When our strength fails and our days are few, keep us waiting on You until our change comes, and let us sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 59:1 — “Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me.”