Job 10 Devotional

Appealing to the Maker's Hands

“You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.”Job 10:12 (BSB)

Job is weary of his life, and he tells God so plainly. Why is God bringing charges against him (10:2)? Does it please God to reject the work of his own hands (10:3)? Then Job reminds God how he was made. God's hands shaped him, clothed him with skin and flesh, knit him together, and gave him life and loving devotion (10:8-12). A psalmist praises God for the same careful work in the womb (Psalm 139:13).

Job's argument rests on that care, yet he cannot reconcile the God who made him with the God he describes as hunting him like a lion (10:16), and the chapter ends in deep darkness, asking only for a little comfort before he dies (10:20-22). The book does not hurry him out of that place. But even his protest appeals to what God has already shown him: he is the work of God's hands, made with loving devotion. When God seems hard to understand, his past care is still a reason to keep speaking to him.

To think about: What evidence of God's past care can you hold on to when his present ways are hard to understand?