Is It All About Man's Deeds? [Job 5]

⁶"For affliction does not come from the dust,
         Nor does trouble sprout from the ground,
    ⁷For man is born for trouble,
         As sparks fly upward.
    ⁸"But as for me, I would seek God,
         And I would place my cause before God;
    ⁹Who does great and unsearchable things,
         Wonders without number.
    ¹⁰"He gives rain on the earth
         And sends water on the fields,
    ¹¹So that He sets on high those who are lowly,
         And those who mourn are lifted to safety.
    ¹²"He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd,
         So that their hands cannot attain success.
    ¹³"He captures the wise by their own shrewdness,
         And the advice of the cunning is quickly thwarted.
    ¹⁴"By day they meet with darkness,
         And grope at noon as in the night.
    ¹⁵"But He saves from the sword of their mouth,
         And the poor from the hand of the mighty.
    ¹⁶"So the helpless has hope,
         And unrighteousness must shut its mouth.
    ¹⁷"Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves,
         So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
    ¹⁸"For He inflicts pain, and gives relief;
         He wounds, and His hands also heal.

Poor Eliphaz.  He has a little bit right about God's character but his conclusions are very myopic and man-centered. The conclusion he draws when he sees God as One "who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number,"  is that all those great works are only in response to what man does and they are all revolved around man.  He notes that God "gives rain on the earth and sends water on the fields,"  but he concludes that it is in response to man.  If man has entered a covenant of "I will be good," then God will send rain. In essence he is saying, if you keep your covenant to be a good person God will reward you with a full and vigorous life right up til your death. He also thinks that when God disciplines you should accept it in order to get back into God's good graces.  He so wrongly puts God in a box. God is so much bigger and broader and considers all of His creation as He chooses how to work.

What is he missing?  The fullness of God and the scope of His attention.  I confess that I already looked at God's answers in chapters 40-42. You may want to skip ahead and read them too so that you can keep perspective.  God is working in and through everything and even though His love is focused on man, how He is working includes all of creation.  The truth is that God is working and willing according to His good pleasure (Phil 2:13) and you cannot predict how He will work.  Therefore, you cannot conclude that if someone is suffering, it is because they have sinned, as Eliphaz did.  Once again, this is the world's wisdom not the truth about God.

We praise You Father that we can look at the stars in the sky and know that You know them all by name.  It is Your great power that keeps them in place.  You are also at work in our individual lives and are exercising your great power to cause us to be holy.  You are able to use whatever You choose and You choose according to what brings you good pleasure.