Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 14

Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Fourteen

Job seems to be addressing God by taking the stance that human beings are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that God shouldn't bother noticing them to punish them.

As Christians, we often speak of the eternal presence of God as being a comfort.  Because earthly strife was connected with divine punishment, it seemed kinder to Job to experience the absence of God rather than the presence of God.  

Significance is a matter of perspective

A person of faith with this mindset could develop similar characteristics to a person with an alcoholic parent.  Growing up with an alcoholic parent, you would never be sure when the next tantrum might come.  What is difficult to understand in the moment is that this is less about you and more about the disease of the parent.  It creates dis-ease in the household.

And because sometimes tragedy is random, such as being in an automobile accident or surviving an earthquake, a person who believes that this is divine punishment would have to cast about to think, "what did I do to deserve this?"  Most of us have at least one or two things that are deficient and we would subsequently lay the blame on these.  This can lead to the idea that we have earned or deserve whatever dire occurrence has come our way.  

It becomes far kinder to God (and to the faithful) to lessen our view of the sovereignty of God.  In other words, God doesn't have to be in complete charge of the universe.  Some things can be random.  The advantage of this is that we are not robots caught in God's ordering of the universe.  We have real determination over our own actions.

Of course, this deeper thinking about God and free will is part of what the author is seeking for us.  Verses 16-17 state to God:

For then you would not 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.

This is of course the theology that Christians took to heart with our understanding of atonement in Jesus Christ.  While we are in Christ, God covers over our sins and transgressions - seals them up in a bag to quote Job.

How does this understanding of grace help us to see God in a way that is helpful rather than problematic?

Prayer for the Day:

Gracious God, we believe that you love us even in all our imperfections.  We also believe that while our sins do grieve you, that you don't pile on any more than what natural consequences provide.  And at the same time, Jesus leads us to believe that you don't see us as insignificant.    Help us to do the right thing more often, not to avoid punishment or to receive praise, but because it delights you and follows your will for the world.  May we increase in this integrity for our faith.  Amen.

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