Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? If your children have sinned against Him, He has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.” (Job 8:1-4 ESV)
Guessing
We might look down on Bildad for being one of the shortest people in the Bible, but Bildad’s advice to Job the Sufferer is actually more worthy of our criticism.
God’s actions in the world, and in our lives, are hard to interpret. While He graciously has given us His Word to read, and His Spirit to help us apply it, we often desire more straightforward statements from God. Bildad said that the children of Job deserved to die. And maybe they did… but the bald fact of their death, observed from our perspective, is not enough to assume their particular guilt.
Bildad, of course, might have been presuming the absolute surety of the sinfulness of Job’s children. If so, Bildad would have been correct. However, even the unclear theology of the Old Testament folk understood that while all deserve death before God, God’s people are promised a Redeemer.
If Bildad is going to assume their guilt, Bildad also could assume their redemption.
Guessing God’s motivation and intention is never safe. But Jesus does not have to guess, because in that incomprehensible way of the Trinity, He IS God.
When trying to interpret the (often hard) events of our lives, remember that. We do not simply know what God is up to. But we do know that Jesus Christ loves His children enough to die in our place. He is amazing enough to defeat Sin’s power, punishment, and presence. He is trustworthy enough to be working on our behalf, not against us.
We can not guess what God is doing. But Jesus knows.