As readers of this drama we know that instead of accusing Job, God affirmed his faith and his integrity. But Job doesn’t know this and so he struggles in darkness, suffering the logical consequences of the belief that suffering is always the result of sin.
Because Job can’t make sense of this, he concludes that God is arbitrarily picking on him and lashes out in anger
Read More confusion, anger
Have you ever given everything to fighting a battle, only to be ambushed by an unexpected attack from a different source?
Scholars link Psalm 60 to a series of military campaigns described in 2 Samuel 8. But where the Samuel passage has a victorious tone, Psalm 60 seems to have been written at a particularly desperate moment.
Read More confusion, defeat, victory, trust
Many of us have heard and tried to practise the proverb, “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” We like when things fit neatly and nicely in their place. We shy away from obscurity and ambiguity and so when Jesus enters a room, or a culture, a life or our world it can be unsettling. Jesus has a tendency to colour outside of the lines, to live, move and think outside of our categorical boxes. He won’t even stay buried when he’s been crucified!
Read More understanding, confusion, ambiguity
Listening to the outpouring of someone else’s grief as we do in these verses can be painful and disturbing. The expressions of pain and the horror of the situation grow in intensity, with mothers reduced to eating their own dead children (v 20). Nothing remains of the past; everything is black and hopeless.
Read More confusion, grief, dépression, theological questions