Yesterday's and today's passages are Job 6.
In the first half, Job wishes God would kill him because he can't stand the pain any more and he'd like to die knowing he had never denied the word of God.
In the second part, he makes a scathing comment on how undependable and useless his friend are in his moment of distress and despair, comparing them to streams swollen with snowmelt one moment and then dried up, empty of water in the moment of heat. He demands to know when he has ever asked anything of them for himself. He defies his friends to tell him when there has ever been any wickedness on his lips.
The book of Job is hard reading for me because it confronts me on myself over and over. In verse 13 he says, "Do I have any power to help myself now that success has been driven from me?" The answer is NO on every one of the six aspects that make up who I am.
Physically I'm old now and growing older.
My body has more aches and pains. I can't do what once I did.
I feel like someone has taken a couple of batteries out of me and I have to function on half the energy I once had.
Can I put new batteries in, can I help myself?
No, but God gives me the grace of his energy to do what he wants me to although I often misappropriate that energy and squander it selfishly.
Morally I constantly struggle with right and wrong.
I think, say and do what is wrong far more than what is right.
I know what is right but I just don't do it, often out of plain stubborness.
It makes no moral sense for me to lie or not admit that I damaged someone else's property.
Only the Holy Spirit's conviction of my wrong moves me to do what is right.
Socially I don't care for others as I want to because I'm selfish.
I would prefer others to take care of me. I also have a touch of fear that blocks me.
I have a student who is depressed and needs to be hugged and told that God loves him.
I have been resisting doing this, preferring to accept the hugs from happy students. The hugging is the power to help myself as much as the depressed boy, but I need God's power to open my arms.
Intellectually I'm in serious trouble because I think I'm quite capable of helping myself by learning new things, new techniques, new ideas.
To some degree that's true but only if I stay in my small area of competence.
As soon as I venture into Math, Physics, Chemistry, learning another language, I am confronted by the lack of power to help myself.
God is pleased to give me his grace to persevere in learning to see myself objectively through his word. But it's his power not mine.
Emotionally I struggle with anger, fear, impatience and stress. I have no power to have peace of mind, feel joy, or be kind, patient, loving.
All that comes from God. There is no power in me to generate any of it.
Spiritually I continually go awry, seeking too often to make compromises with the world.
Without God's grace I would not even have been called to faith.
Without God's grace, I would not go to worship and small group sharing or spend hours on looking at myself more objectively through the daily QT passage.
It's God's grace working in our church community that I am nurtured to the degree that I am.
I have no power to help myself.
My daily failures point me to that understanding.
Only by the grace of God am I alive and able to keep my focus on the Lord to praise him, love him and love others.
Lord, help me realize my utter dependence on you. Let me see that dependence as a source of joy and not despair. Let me love others as you have loved me.
