Job 12 - Seeking to understand

Sound theology as it might be from his friends, Job is not the least bit impressed.

Verse 5 contains an important truth. When we are at ease we can easily have contempt for those who are struggling. Sometimes this will be expressed in an overt way, but more often than not it will be a simple failure to appreciate what the person is going through. We never fully understand what someone else is going through. The reason this is so is that we do not have the same weaknesses and failings that they have. You see, the difficulty of a trial is not simply a consequence of the stuff we are having to endure, but the interplay between what we are having to endure and our own personality, with all its failings and weaknesses.

Verse 7-12 seem to imply that Job knew that God was in control and that God had decreed all that was happening. Yet he cannot work out why on earth God should think what is happening is a good plan.

Then we get a series of declarations of the greatness of the Lord.