21:7 - Job is dealing with questions that have plagued mankind for all time. I here high school students ask this question every year. Why does it seem like the bad people get away with everything? I love that the Book of Job, one of the oldest accounts in history, is dealing with relevant philosophical/theological questions in every age.
21:14-15 - Job continues firing back at his "friends" who insist that he has done some major sinning and brought all the calamity of his life down upon himself. He tells them, "I have seen men who reject and scorn God, live comfortable and safe lives." Job brings this up, because he believes this also means that there are God-fearing men and women who experience pain and suffering.
23:8 - Again Job is expressing feelings that are common to all people at one time or another. He is searching high and low for God, but he cannot feel His presence. Job feels like he cannot connect with God. It feels like God isn't there to him. Have you ever experienced a time like this?
23:10 - This is such a great answer to the problems he is facing. Even though he feels like God is distant, Job chooses to remind himself of who God is. He chooses to remind himself that God is just and that God is going to bring him through this terrible situation a better man...he is going to be refined like gold through the fire of suffering. I have often had people come to me and tell me they cannot feel God like they used to be able to. I tell them to do what they used to do when they felt close to God. Choose to believe what you used to believe about God...choose to seek Him in prayer and study...stay faithful to God even when it feels like He is distant and you will once again find that connection.
24:1-14 - Job describes the people in the world who are starving, poor, broken, and suffering...some of these are people who have not turned away from God. He says, "Look around guys, there are people in this world who are suffering that are not God charges with no wrong...they are just suffering because they live in a fallen world, not because they have been unfaithful to God."
24:14-25 - And he compares those people to those who are clearly evil, yet who live comfortable lives. Again he points out that there are good people who suffer and evil people who prosper. He doesn't understand why this is the case, but in verse 24 he chooses to once again remind himself of the truth about God. The people who reject God may prosper for a little while here on earth, but in the end they will be gathered up and harvested like wheat for their crimes. They will pay the price for their sins. Justice comes...but it comes in God's time. This is something that all of us need to remember - there will be justice, but it may not come until the afterlife.
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