OT 49

Lord and God,

Where are wisdom and understanding to be found, Lord God? This was Job’s quest. He sought to know: How can this be? Where is justice? Where is the God who sets all things right? And he knew wisdom is not a thing which man extracts from the world, it is with the most high God himself who set all created things in their place. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.

Yet, as you spoke by Paul, those who measure themselves against one another are without understanding, without wisdom. They measure their obedience against men, not God’s command. Let him who boasts boast in the Lord, for it is not he who commends himself but he whom you commend that is approved. Righteous Job was therefore justified not by his insistence before his friends or even before you, but by your approval of him to the evil one. Job was a “blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil” already, by the word of your most holy lips. Let us therefore not compare nor complain, but trust your verdict over us. You, Lord, have justified us. In Christ we have new and clean hearts, and our transgressions are no more. Bring us to life in your word, your wisdom.