Job 10 - The Job model of prayer

Job continues his response to Bildad.

Things are so bad that Job loathes his life. He feels he has nothing to lose, so he gives free rein to his complaint against God. He is speaking out of the bitterness of his soul.

Note that these complaints are directed directly to God. There are those who complain to men about God, and there are those who complain directly to God. Generally the Bible condemns the former, but commends the latter. God gave us a the book of Job not as a warning about what not to do, but as a demonstration of how we can interact with him. Now if you read a book on prayer it will have something like the ACTS model, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication (asking). It will not recommend something like we get here. Yet God chose to put the book of Job in the Bible. Now this is not the way we should pray most of the time, the ACTS approach is far better (or the Lord's prayer!). But, we do not realise how deep sin runs, and how deep its effects run, and there are times in life when the Job approach is what is needed, and God can handle us in these times.

Job thinks that God is angry with him, he can understand  why God is doing all this stuff to him. Now we know from the introduction to Job that God is not angry with Job, quite the opposite.

What is the difference between the complaints of an unbeliever and those of a believer? The believer's complaints are based on a right understanding of God, but a failing to see how the present circumstances can possibly be consistent with the God he knows. Job knows that God created him. For a long time God had been good to Job, but all the time He knew that the present day would come. And Job thinks the present troubles are the end of the matter, his destiny. So he cannot see the point to anything. The truth of course is that the present troubles were a stepping stone along the way.