No Justice

If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me, know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me. Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.
Job 19: 5-8
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No Justice
Job can often be a difficult book to read.  We can find ourselves sympathizing with Job when he says he finds not just, and that God has closed His net around him. Even though we know more than Job knew at this time we still see his treatment as unfair.  How could a loving God let this happen to His people? Where is the justice in that? Yet let us not be blind to the truth, that it is not God who has set the snare, but Satan.  He is the one who inflicts the pain and suffering upon Job. It is the Accuser who brings about such sorrow and misfortune. Lest we think to highly of ourselves, there are very few who could withstand Job’s suffering and not act and think as he does. But in the end Job does not turn from God, and in fact draws closer to Him, knowing that it is in God where he can have any hope of relief.  So to with us, in our times of trial and tribulation, we are to turn to God, to look to the cross of Christ and see that we do not have a distant God, unbale to understand our suffering. The pierced hands and feet, the spear wound, the thorn ravaged head, all attest to a God who has suffered for His people, “In all their affliction he was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). And in viewing Christ on the cross, we can cling to it knowing we are forgiven, our sins paid for, our life redeemed.  We cling to the cross of our Redeemer, thankful that the punishment, the true justice we deserved, was not laid upon us, but was carried by Jesus. And in this we find comfort, hope, and forgiveness.