Day 241

Job 31:1-33:33; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18; Psalm 43:1-5; Proverbs 22:8-9

Honest Words

In these last chapters of the book of Job, we find a tremendous amount of honest and frank conversation. Job honestly defends himself with vigor. Elihu speaks with bold frankness to his elders. All of this frank and honest conversation revolves around the subject of Job’s suffering and God’s relationship to it. It’s amazing how suffering has that effect on us. It elicits honest words between us and our Creator. Suffering has a way of removing the filters we like to keep in place when dialoguing with God (a.k.a. prayer).

Thankfully, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have a God with whom we can speak boldly. While we do not believe that God causes our suffering, when we experience trying circumstances, we know that we can express ourselves with honesty and frankness. We can “approach the throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16).

Sometimes in our prayer lives we have a tendency to present our “best selves” to God, as if God does not know who we are through and through. Is this “best self” in reality a “false self”? What if we always presented our “suffering self” to God during our prayer life?  When I say this, I mean our honest and frank “self” to God, even when things are going swimmingly. What would it look like to always be open and completely transparent with God?

Gary Jackson