June 3 ▪ Day 154

Scripture Readings

Psalms 9:1–2
Job 3–4
John 17
Proverbs 4

Verse Focus (Psalms 9:1–2)

¹I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart;
     I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
²I will be glad and rejoice in you;
     I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.

Meditation

Today’s verse focus speaks of thanking and praising God. Psalms 9:1-2 says, “I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.” These verses have always caught my eye, expressing a desire in my heart that I don’t always know how to voice. Perhaps you, too, sometimes struggle to worship God.

What I like about these verses is that they are in future tense. It’s not just about praising God in the moment; the verses celebrate the certainty that one will give thanks. The psalmist knows that God will be faithful. There will be a new “wonderful deed” to tell people. And having the assurance of future grace is a wonderful thing.

Gratitude needs to be expressed. Like the psalmist, we need to tell people how God has helped us. Verse 2 is both the result of sharing gratitude, as well as the psalmist’s resolution to be be glad and rejoice regardless of current circumstances. We think of joy as just “happening,” but there is also an element of will. We must choose to rejoice. Today, I choose to rejoice and be glad in God my Savior.

Father God, thank you for saving me through Christ Jesus. Thank you for all the ways you have been good to me — giving me family, friends, food, and shelter. Let me praise you with my words and actions this day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Before we begin discussing Job chapters 3 and 4, I think it’s best to do a quick overview of what happens in the book of Job. Knowing how the story ends will help us to interpret what is said in these earlier chapters. Job has an opening monologue (chapter 3). Then there are a series of dialogues between Job and his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite (chapters 4 through 27). Job maintains his integrity, and demands to speak with God. But his three friends assume that Job suffers because he has sinned. Chapter 28 is an interlude: a poem to wisdom. Job gives a closing monologue (chapters 29 through 31), and then Elihu speaks (chapters 32 through 37). In the final chapters, God Himself speaks from the whirlwind. Job responds to God’s questions, acknowledging his lack of wisdom. Job repents. In the epilogue, God says that he is angry with Eliphaz and his two friends “because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has (42:7).” Job intercedes for his three friends, and then God forgives them.

In Job chapter 3, after seven days of silence, Job finally speaks. In his opening monologue, Job curses the day of his birth. “Why did I not perish at birth,” Job asks in verse 11, “and die as I came from the womb?” Job says that if he had been stillborn or died as an infant, then at least he “would have been at rest (v. 13).” In verse 20, Job asks one of life’s great mysteries, saying, “Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul?” He concludes his monologue by saying, in verse 26, “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

While Job does not directly curse God in this opening speech, I find myself undecided as to whether or not his speech indicates a loss of integrity. On the one hand, Job is being honest with how he feels. We see in the Psalms, and in other passages in the Bible, that it is good to bring your complaints to God. On the other hand, Job now has a serious case of ingratitude. He is no longer thankful for his life or anything else God has given him. And while his lips may not have cursed God, it seems like his heart may have begun to do so.

In chapter 4, Eliphaz the Temanite speaks. He half apologizes for daring to speak, but says, in verse 2, “Yet who can keep from speaking?” He recognizes that Job has done good things and is now discouraged. With unintentional irony, Eliphaz asks the obvious question in verse 6, “Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?” Of course, this is exactly why Job maintains his innocence before God. But Eliphaz goes on to state several moral axioms: the innocent do not perish, the upright are not cut off (v. 7); rather, “those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same (v. 8).” In this manner, Eliphaz implies that Job must have done something wrong to be the recipient of such difficulties.

Eliphaz asks a telling question in verse 17, “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?” It is a philosophical quandary. But for Eliphaz the answer is obviously no. He goes on to say God accuses even his angels of error; mankind, easily crushed, dies without wisdom.

One of the things that is so challenging about reading the book of Job is that Job’s three friends possess a lot of wisdom. What they say is mostly true. It’s not true as they apply their words to Job; but it would be true of just about any other human being in the world. But the easy answer is that suffering is the result of one’s own sinfulness. And this is rejected, time and again, as being too simplistic. Just like Jesus said in John 9:3, neither the man born blind nor his parents sinned; rather, the situation was allowed in order to show the glory of God.

In John 17, Jesus prays because “the hour has come (v. 1).” It is the culmination of Jesus’ ministry, and the culmination of God’s work throughout history. The mob who comes to arrest Jesus will arrive shortly. So Jesus prays that God will glorify him with “the glory I had with you before the world began (v. 5).” He also prays for the disciples, and for us — for those who will come to believe in Jesus through the testimony of the disciples (v. 20).

It is an interesting prayer. Jesus does not pray for the things we would expect. We know from earlier that Jesus had prayed for Peter, that his faith will not fail even though Jesus knows Peter will deny him three times that night (Luke 22:32). But he does not pray for God to establish the faith of the disciples. Nor does he pray for the gospel message to spread. Instead, Jesus prays for unity among the disciples. He prays that “they may be one,” even as the Jesus and the Father are one (v. 11). This is the same prayer that Jesus prays for us today — that we “may all be one (v. 21),” just as the Father is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the Father.

Notably, Jesus does not pray for “the world (v. 9).” He does not spend his last hours praying for unbelievers; his prayer is only for those that the Father has given to him (v. 9). After praying for unity, he prays that God will protect the disciples from “the evil one (v. 15).” Again, he does not ask that God would take the believers out of the world — that is, out of the realm of Satan — but that God would protect us in the world. “Sanctify them in the truth,” Jesus says in verse 17, “Your word is truth.”

Obviously, because this prayer for unity was one of the very last things Jesus did before his death and resurrection, it is something that we should take very seriously. But how are we to understand this unity? When we look at the proliferation of churches and denominations in today’s society, we do not see unity. And we fear that the world may not see unity, either.

But sometimes I wonder if we’re mistaken about the reason for the unity. I have heard believers talk about unity as a testimony to unbelievers. But in New Testament times, those who did not believe in Jesus did not see or understand his unity with the Father. The believers saw; the unbelievers did not. But what unbelievers cannot see does not dictate the reality of the union between Jesus and the Father. So perhaps the unity is not for the sake of unbelievers, but for the sake of the believers. If we are obeying Jesus’ command to love one another, we will honor others above ourselves. And in circumstances like those, we cannot but help but be unified.

In Proverbs 4, Solomon continues to counsel his children to find wisdom. It is what his father David taught him: the search for wisdom is the most important thing you can do (v. 4, v. 7). Verse 13 says, “Hold on to instruction; don’t let go. Guard it, for it is your life.”

Verse 18 and verse 23 are favorites from my times reading this chapter (particularly verse 23). But today, I am struck by the last verse. Verse 27 says, “Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” The verse implies that turning aside may be the way we turn towards evil. But mostly I’m captured by the idea of focus. We have a destination, a goal. We are to focus on that destination and pursue that goal. When we trust Him, God makes our paths straight — and we are not to deviate from that. “Do not turn to the right or the left.”

Father God, please help us to focus on the things you want us to do. Let us press on to win the prize, as Paul would say. Thank you for your Scripture. Please continue to give us wisdom and understanding. As Jesus prayed, sanctify us by your word — by the truth. May we also be one with our brothers and sisters as Jesus prayed. We ask these things in Jesus’ name, Amen.