Job 13:23–24: “How many are my [Job] iniquities and sins? / Make me know my transgression and my sin. / Why do You hide Your face, / And regard me as Your enemy?”

December 8th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Job turned his appeal from his friends, who were not helping him at all, to God. Job knew he was a sinner, but he seemed to want to know the degree and severity of his sin so he could determine if his suffering matched it. This would also enable him to repent of sins he was unaware of, but the heavens were silent. Although surrounded by his friends, he felt alone.

Life is hard, and sometimes it feels as though no one is listening, even when we pray. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”¹ It seems when we are filled with happiness or even just busy with the cares of this world, our spiritual hearing is blocked and it’s impossible for us to hear the whispering voice of God. Our heavenly Father is speaking to us but we fail to slow down enough, be still enough, to listen to Him. When we fail to take the time for purposeful listening, because of our overflowing life, His communication process is blocked. In Luke 8:8, Jesus cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Patrick Goldman, past vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board told of a stewardess who was so frustrated by her passenger’s inattentiveness to her preflight talk that she changed the wording, saying, “When the oxygen mask drops down in front of you, place it over your navel and continue to breathe normally.” Not a single passenger noticed. But God is persistent in His love and concern toward us, crying out to us in our pain, until He finally has our attention.

“LORD, give us ears to hear You today. We want You to speak, LORD, and we want to be faithful servants who listen.”

¹C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940; repr., San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 91.

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Job 13 KJV

¹ Lo, mine eye hath seen all this , mine ear hath heard and understood it. ² What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you. ³ Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. ⁴ But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. ⁵ O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom. ⁶ Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. ⁷Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? ⁸ Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? ⁹ Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? ¹⁰ He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. ¹¹ Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? ¹² Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. ¹³ Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will . ¹⁴ Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? ¹⁵Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.  ¹⁶ He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him. ¹⁷ Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears. ¹⁸ Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified. ¹⁹ Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost. ²⁰ Only do not two things unto me: then will I not hide myself from thee. ²¹ Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid. ²² Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me. ²³ How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin. ²⁴ Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? ²⁵ Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? ²⁶ For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. ²⁷ Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet. ²⁸ And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.