Job 25:4 4 How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? ESV
Call me weird, but when I read this verse today I answered, “Only through Jesus, Bildad, only through Jesus.” Bil knew about sin. He’d committed some and some had been committed against him; to him it was just a part of life. And it is, it is a part of life. And sin separates man from God. And if that is all there is then Bildad (and others like him) can ask questions like, “How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?” Bildad looked at life only through the lens of, it is what it is and there ain’t no changing it… To me, Bildad sums up what I would call the futility of faith.
Futile faith is really no faith at all. Futile faith is focused more on futility than it is on faith. Futile faith says it will never change and expects nothing more. Futile faith is really faith in futility. Futile faith is fed when one really, really, really wants God to act their way and all He does is act His way. Futile faith imprisons God to impotence because He won’t perform in a particular manner; i.e. the way I want Him to… So God is relegated to uselessness because He won’t (or can’t) give me what I want. Who needs a God who won’t consider my plight? Ah, the fickle, foolish, frail, faulty, fallen self and its futile demands.
Bildad could not accept that God could or would ever reach out to people; they were just too bad. In Bildad’s eyes (and perhaps rightly so) people got whatever the got because they deserved it. Bildad couldn’t understand a compassionate Deity. A deity of retribution, punishment, and judgment? Yes, but a God who loves people despite their brokenness? Never! Only through Jesus, Bildad, only through Jesus.
I am grateful for Jesus today. I am grateful for a God who reaches out to me because at times I simply cannot reach out to Him.
Father in Heaven,
You reached out for me because You knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t on my own. Today, I pray for Your touch and peace that I may walk with You in grateful humility that You are indeed my God and through Your Son, I am indeed made pure – in His Name, amen.
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