God’s Sufficient Justice

Scripture Focus: Job 40.8-14
“Would you discredit my justice?
    Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
Do you have an arm like God’s,
    and can your voice thunder like his?
Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
    and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.
Unleash the fury of your wrath,
    look at all who are proud and bring them low,
look at all who are proud and humble them,
    crush the wicked where they stand.
Bury them all in the dust together;
    shroud their faces in the grave.
Then I myself will admit to you
    that your own right hand can save you.

Reflection: God’s Sufficient Justice
By John Tillman

When God finally speaks, he dares Job to dress himself in splendor and work justice in the Earth by his own power. This may have seemed uniquely personal to Job. To use today’s vernacular, Job probably felt attacked.

In earlier speeches, Job had described himself similarly to God’s challenge. Job described dressing in a turban and robe that would proclaim his status and power. He claimed to have struck fear in the hearts of the wicked and to have carried out justice. (Job 29.7-17

Job was “the greatest among the people of the East.” (Job 1.1-4) This may have meant Job was a chieftain or king, but even if not, he was as wealthy as one and equally responsible for the carrying out of justice in his community. 

Earlier, in Heaven, God defended Job’s righteousness, but here, he seems unsatisfied. So, is Job righteous or not? 

Like many heroes of faith in scripture, we can point to much earthly good in Job’s life to emulate. But like all of them, Job’s earthly actions are insufficient to claim righteousness before God. 

Humans are capable of great good and a certain level of justice and we are responsible before God to bring about justice. Justice comes first in Micah’s three-point list of what God requires of humanity: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. (Micah 6.8)

But even the highest levels of human justice are tainted. Job was arguably the most righteous person to ever live in scripture. Yet, scripture is clear that even the righteousness, or justice, of Job is as filthy rags compared to God’s glorious justice.

Being righteous before other humans is easy. We just have to be slightly less evil at heart than the next guy. But when God is the next guy, on our best day, we have no chance of being righteous in our own power. We, like Job, are simply incapable. We must simply cover our mouths, and throw ourselves on the mercy of God.

Some have abused the notion that human justice is incomplete and imperfect as an excuse to cease pursuing justice on Earth. Some even call seeking justice anti-gospel. This is misguided, to say the least. 

“Thy will be done on Earth” is a prayer for God’s justice by God’s power, not our own. When we act on this prayer, we will find Christ with us, embracing us and imputing God’s sufficient righteousness and justice to us.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.
With his right hand and his holy arm has he won for himself the victory.
The Lord has made known his victory; his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations. — Psalm 98.1-3

Today’s Readings
Job 40 (Listen -2:09),
2 Corinthians 10 (Listen -2:45)

Read more about Righteousness Sets Things RightIn Job’s example, righteousness is connected to and related to justice. The word sedeq, translated “righteous,” is often translated “just,” “justice,” “fairly,” and “rights,”

Read more about Convicted by Job’s Righteousness
If Job was defenseless before God, unable to stand before him despite all his blameless actions, what will we do when God confronts us?

A God Who Celebrates

Scripture Focus: Job 39.19-21
Do you give the horse its strength
    or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
Do you make it leap like a locust,
    striking terror with its proud snorting?
It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
    and charges into the fray.

Reflection: A God Who Celebrates

By John Tillman

In Genesis, we read “And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1.25) What we read in Job is an exponential expansion that goes beyond “good” to demonstrate God’s great pleasure in all creatures great and small. 

In Job, we see God thrill in his creation. There is no creature he mentions that is not spoken of with deep affection and pride. God shows he values diversity in his distribution of skills and power to the many different species which he singles out to Job.

God’s intense boasting is intentionally intimidating, however, we also see his tender love for these creatures. He does not only single out animals we might consider majestic, such as the warhorse. His loving gaze points out to us mountain goats and fawns tenderly raising their young. God implies that it is he who unties the donkey, liberating it from enslavement to run free in the desert.

Our God teaches goats to be tender.

Our God loosens the bonds of donkeys to run free.

Our God rejoices in the speed of the unwieldy and unwise ostrich.

God called creatures “good” in Genesis.
“Very good,” is what God said in Genesis about humanity’s addition to creation. (Genesis 1.26-31)

God celebrates the diversity and wondrous variety of the animals of creation, yet his rejoicing over us is more, higher, greater. The book of Job may end with God bragging to men about animals, but it began with God bragging about a man (Job 1.8) before the courts of Heaven.

What is humanity that he is mindful of us? We are a little lower than the angels. We are the kings and queens of the Earth—the rightful rulers of nature. (Psalm 8.4-9) We are the focus of Christ’s loving mission to Earth, and of Christ’s advocacy before Heaven on our behalf. (1 John 2.1-2; Matthew 10.32-33)

O God, we are unworthy creatures who rejoice that you rejoice over us.
May we be humbled by your great power, and lifted up by your great love.
Though we are tough and hard-headed as goats, teach us to be tender.
Though we are unwieldy and unwise as the ostrich, give us grace to run in the path of your commands.
Though we are enslaved to this world’s sins, liberate us like the wild donkey to celebrate in the desert.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Early in the morning I cry out to you, for in your word is my trust. — Psalm 119.147

Today’s Readings

Job 39 (Listen -2:47),
2 Corinthians 9 (Listen -2:26)

Read more about Prayer for Older Brothers
You come out and embrace me, Father.
You invite me to celebrate

Read more about Christ, Our Undeserved Friend
Though my sins and weakness he sees,
My case before the Father, pleads.
He knows my state and yet he bends
God’s ear to me, for me contends


On Keeping Vigil

Scripture Focus: Job 38.1-3
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

Reflection: On Keeping Vigil
By John Tillman

In her insightful article on the practice of keeping vigil during Lent, Heather Hughes comments on an observation made by Thomas Merton while he was keeping watch for wildfires:

“In a haunting meditation on his experience of watching for wildfires one hot summer night in the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Thomas Merton makes the link between the enhanced sensory awareness of those on vigil and their enhanced spiritual awareness:

‘The fire watch is an examination of conscience in which your task as watchman suddenly appears in its true light: a pretext devised by God to isolate you, and to search your soul with lamps and questions, in the heart of darkness.’

Merton is confronted with the immediacy of God’s transcendent mystery; the darkness and isolation of his vigil provide an experience much like Job’s encounter with God’s voice in the whirlwind:

God, my God, God Whom I meet in darkness, with You it is always the same thing! Always the same question that nobody knows how to answer! I have prayed to you in the daytime with thoughts and reasons, and in the nighttime You have confronted me, scattering thought and reason. I have come to You in the morning with light and with desires, and You have descended upon me, with great gentleness, with most forbearing silence, in this inexplicable night, dispersing light, defeating all desire.’

In his wakefulness Merton perceives more of the world around him, but also the quality of his own soul. Like Job, he learns that his questions, doubts, and accusations do not begin to confront the unfathomable enormity of God’s reality.

This is what we hope to accomplish through the spiritual discipline of keeping vigil: an encounter with the living God, an increased sensitivity to his presence in our lives and in the world, and a better understanding of who we are in light of this.”

As Hughes suggests, may we keep vigil during this season of Lent. If not the literal meaning of vigil—praying the hours at midnight—may we keep a mindfulness of God’s presence with us in not only the light moments of life, but in the darkness. For if joy is to come in the morning, first we must sit through the dark.

*Quotations condensed from “Keeping Vigil” by Heather Hughes.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
O Lord, my God, my Saviour, by day and night I cry to you. Let my prayer enter into your presence. — Psalm 88.1-2

Today’s Readings
Job 38 (Listen -3:33),
2 Corinthians 8 (Listen -3:25)

Read more about Spiritual Vigilance Needed :: Worldwide Prayer
The dangers of spiritual life are more subtle than a home invasion—and more dangerous.

Read more about Meditation in Spiritual RhythmThomas Merton poetically wrote about humanity, “He is the saddest animal. He drives a big red car called anxiety.


Spending our Way to Asceticism

Scripture Focus: 2 Corinthians 5.15
And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Reflection: Spending our Way to Asceticism
By John Tillman

Ascetics are the new cool kids. How do we become ascetics in a Western consumerist culture? Spend more, of course. 

People, even non-believers, universally recognize fasting as a marker of spirituality. Fasting is perhaps one of the least understood and most abused spiritual disciplines. Richard Foster said, “Because of the secularization of modern society, ‘fasting’ is usually motivated either by vanity or by the desire for power.” The power many are seeking is not power over sin, but power over the bathroom scale. We are not looking to make ourselves fit for Heaven as much as we are looking for ways to fit into the suit we wore a few years ago.

Many “fasts” involve paying for or partaking in perplexing, complicated, and expensive diets, foods, powders, and gadgets. This consumerist approach helps fasting fit into the American spiritual narrative of moralistic self-sufficiency. Even atheists can virtue-signal their dedication to self-improvement by going on a partial fast, eating far less of far more expensive food.

I am prone to stumble into cynicism about societal/spiritual trends such as these. So I want to be careful not to step too hard on anyone’s attempts to seek God through a discipline of fasting. Just because some fasts have a trending hashtag or have been of financial value to grocers and the sports nutrition industry doesn’t mean they have no spiritual value. After all, sticking to an expensive plan as a part of a fast is adding a financial level of sacrifice to a physical level of sacrifice. Who am I to judge? Fast on, trendy-fasters.

But I pray, for myself and others, that as we continue through Lent that no matter what kind of fast we choose, fasting will be more to us than a religious/dietary stunt. 

I pray that our intentions will be not for a good result in our dietary health but a God-result in our spiritual health.

As we continue fasting this weekend, let us pray this prayer from a previous post on fasting:

May we be more thrilled by gaining a better connection to Christ than by losses on a scale. 
May our lack aid us in leaning into Christ’s sufficiency. 
May our hunger lead us to read from His holy Word. 
May our pangs of emptiness lead us to make more room in our hearts and lives for the Holy Spirit and for the community of his Holy Church.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. — Psalm 85.10

Today’s Readings
Job 35 (Listen -1:33)
2 Corinthians 5 (Listen -3:14)

This Weekend’s Readings
Job 36 (Listen -3:04), 2 Corinthians 6 (Listen -2:31)
Job 37 (Listen -2:27), 2 Corinthians 7 (Listen -2:58)

Read more about Binging on Fasting
We misunderstand fasting to such a level that we have co-opted the concept to create new opportunities for consumption.

Read more about Fasting “Better”
As fasting has grown fashionable…It’s easy for it to become just another spiritual competition of one-upmanship and comparison.

Seeking Silence

Scripture Focus: 2 Corinthians 4.18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Reflection: Seeking Silence
By Matt Tullos

The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. — Blaise Pascal

My wife and kids were away the night a violent thunderstorm hit our town and the electricity went out. At that moment I was watching a football game, scanning twitter, and listening to music.

When darkness arrived in a split second I realized that the battery on my iPhone was almost gone. A brief moment of panic ensued. I realized that in a matter of minutes I would be thrust into the lifestyle millions of people enjoyed in the 1800s!

The silence and lack of media connection was unnerving at first. It was then that I sensed the presence of God speaking to me about my addiction to noise. After 15 minutes I had rediscovered the beauty of silence.

These days, silence is something we must fight to achieve, but it is definitely worth the fight. The National Center of Biotechnology stated in a study that two minutes of silence is more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music, based on changes in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.

However, this is not new knowledge for people of the Book. The Bible urges us to experience silence as a spiritual discipline.

Every day we are faced with the choice of constant communication, noise and blather or intentional, Jesus-focused silence.

Don’t wait for a power outage in order to spend time in silence. God might be trying to tell you something but all the ambient noise and entertainment leaves you deaf to His voice.
I believe we would be astounded by all God wants to say to us and yet He never gets a chance because of our preoccupation with news, messages, conversations and entertainment. Silence isn’t just golden, it is godly.

Ask yourself, “How am I seeking silence in my day?” and “Why is constant communication and auditory stimulation so addictive?”

Take time to spend 15 minutes in silence today. Allow God to speak into your soul.

Editor’s Note: Fasts of many different kinds are common during the Lenten season. In our modern world a fast from certain aspects of technology might be as important as any other type of fasting.

As we continue through the season of Lent we pray that our fasting would not be merely self-improvement or self-fulfillment, but instead, a process of self-denial, seeking of God, and blessing of others. — John

Divine Hours Prayer: The Small Verse
My soul thirsts for the strong, living God and all that is within me cries out to him.

Today’s Readings
Job 34 (Listen -3:26)
2 Corinthians 4 (Listen -3:02)

Read more about From Silence, Peace
Seek silence and darkness for a time, so that you can meditate and wait to hear his intimate voice and feel the light of his peaceful presence.

Read more about Hearing in Silence :: Throwback Thursday
It is not that God is not speaking or communicating to us. Rather, we have allowed ourselves to get back into such a hole that all we hear is the noise around us.