God, not only to my desires, and when He tells me none of His considerations I follow my own, never those of impious ones. Are your truths gainful, embellishing your deeds, greater and more useful than those of the Lord's?
Reckoner: Look at what happens to people suffering from their sins, afflictions they bring on themselves, despite anyone's persuasion they are blameless, as they wait to be convicted of sin, the beginning of understanding God, brought by messages of the Holy Spirit, circumstances revealing His will for them.
Job: I am beginning to believe people's adversities are afflicted for no fault of their own, acknowledging human beings can attribute anything to fate, never always blaming others for misfortunes, but my destiny has been to suffer beyond what reason should allow.
Reckoner: Adversities descending on us can seldom be explained by our reason. Seek God's reason to reveal the determination for your afflictions.
Job: Are you privileged more than others to understand His reason?
Reckoner: God gives us common sense to understand afflictions by all.
Bystander: Does it matter to the Lord if Job has been blameless in his works, if he has been as righteous as the law prescribes, or if what he does interests Him any, making a case to judge him? God knows our faults, recording and using them to judge one as He wills. Time will tell how much they matter, how much blamelessness will count.
Reckoner: Our sense sees Job's wickedness, readily observed by critics, reporting his unending iniquities, bargaining to amass wealth, exacting pledges from brothers, stripping them of their needs, manna for survival, sending them away barren, hiding his activities in darkness, thinking they are hidden from God.
Bystander: Gather ones with like ambitions, hoarding all abundance the Creator provides, reducing His Providence, making it barren, annihilating its promise, voided beyond restoration, dismissing His pledge, never considering redemption by confession, but maybe by the grace of God, healing will surface, activated by an unknown code, restoring creation to it's once was.
Reckoner: As a blameless person did you ever deny anyone's daily bread, refrain from rescuing a single lost sheep, withhold living water from a thirsting soul, sending lost ones away empty-handed, crushing their hopes into despair, destroying your shield of virtue by looking away to ignore your conscience, preserving your blamelessness, hiding your wrongs behind uprightness, trusting all your deeds deserved merit because none were followed by revenge, believing the Lord cares little for what happens under the sun? Can one be holy and righteous while blaspheming the Holy Spirit, ignoring His voice, His words directing one to obey, following only some of His commands, ones myself chooses to honor, deeming only some to be acknowledged? Not all blame is yours, following priests who have violated God's instructions, defiling His holy things, making no distinction between what is holy and what is not, profaning the goodness of His temple, adopting you as a protege, conferring on you a mantle of blamelessness.
Job: You cannot hold me accountable to wrong-doings, accusing me of sins no one can escape. Does this justify my troubles, bringing about my personal Day of the Lord, satisfying retributions bypassing justice.
Reckoner: Your suffering comes from God. Agree with Him and be at peace, trusting He will come to restore your blessings. Accept His instructions, laying up His words in your heart, dispatching your pride, humbling yourself, banishing your unrighteousness, delighting you to come into His presence, joyfully joining the Almighty, lifting your soul in prayer, knowing He will listen, confessing your unworthiness, asking Him to show how you can be purified.
Job: My afflictions, never purifying me, reduce me to nothingness, nevermore useful for anyone or anything, divested of all once making me someone, removing all my inclinations to sin, never again to be involved with iniquity, as God dismantles my pride, reducing me to one lowly insignificant and despised being, preparing me for innocence and it's existence of nothingness, destroying my inherent nature, my being born in sin.
Reckoner: Does God still not hear you, never responding to your petitions, ignoring your requests to be heard, perhaps because your misdeeds continue, removing you from His concerns, disbelieving your vows, seeing you still shun essential feats of righteousness, as you rest comfortably on laurels of blamelessness, boasting confidently of your uprightness, ignoring its evil arrogance, never considering the Lord's ways, trusting only your wisdom's decisions, isolated with protection beyond any judgment's criticism, forgetting God gave you the law, the basis for all critical jurisdiction.
Job: I have always used God's gifts, maybe at times uncertain of their purpose, using them in ways directed by my truths, but always faithful to the world's perceptions of Him.
Reckoner: Are the virtues expected for using God's gifts ones for your understanding, lights to shine on all your ways, beacons beaming righteousness, banishing articles of your wisdom, driving off your prideful glory, depreciating your worthiness, encouraging you to embrace humility, treasuring diffidence above all your myself, removing all the tarnish tainting your deeds? God responds to our use of His gifts, rendering to all peoples according to their deeds. Have your actions been faultless, acknowledging that no humans are innocent as they trust themselves to be? You, as all of us, prepare for the last judgment by testing our uprightness on how innocent we have been.
Job: Your words help me none, spouting your wisdom, no better than others, overlooking my complaint, unending with bitterness, hearing no response from my Creator. If God still cannot show His face or clear my understanding by His explanations, I might ask why He cannot provide an advocate to plead my case, one who could face Him as I cannot, who endowed to distribute grace could plead my innocence and declare me righteous, maybe undeserving but at least white-washing me as better than blameless, knowing I can never be sinless, protecting me from torments fated for evil ones, recognizing I have devoted myself to doing good.
Bystander: Job doesn't know he shouldn't rejoice in the service he deems successful, when he did not seek a right relationship with the Lord, neglecting to know Him better, ignoring His power, never calling on His indwelling spirit, forgetting His authority as Almighty God, overlooking trust in obedience, consecration, and dedication to make him right with God, but he must acknowledge the supernatural miracle of God's grace, never questioning His wisdom, never trusting the wisdom of his own repentance, but accept His mercy for undeserving sinners.
Job: How can I trust the invisible One ignoring all my pleas? I need a crusader who knows where to find Him, to lead me into His presence, to hear my case, to understand my arguments, obligating Him to answer, but I fear He would never face me, heed none of my troubles, explaining my reason is never His, my justification as an upright man is unacceptable for acquittal. Alone with only laws to obey, I can never answer to any human beings, to decrees and dogmas never knowing mercy, scribblings unable to judge me as a person, such being their invisible and incomprehensible nature, words sanctified as the signature of God workings. Should I be purified, cleansing things veiled, removing them from my memory, unworthiness remaining concealed by my blamelessness, ignored in their hiding, but held fast unforgotten by the all-knowing Almighty, unforgiven and tarnishing any decree to welcome me into His holy presence, condemning me to be unfit, never qualifying me for transfiguration into His image, as I beg for assistance, seeking righteousness to enter His realm and be like Him?
Joseph: You gain righteousness in increments, taking difficult small steps, ponderously moving toward an unreachable nearness, striving to become like God. I know some of His commands, some being innate before I learned them, like ones to run from temptations, such as when the master's wife called me to her bed, but trusting God I know He has a purpose for me, ordering me to deny her desire, although it could place me again in bondage. With full reason to call on God for an explanation, I accepted my fate and wait patiently for a time when I might be vindicated.
Job: Do you pride in your continuing unworthy deeds, justifying God's retribution, o
r maybe you insulted a woman unfairly, behaving as directed by her nature, responding like females of all times, seeking affection denied her by being one's sole possession, belonging to only one. I suffered as you, but for far less reason, having to seek God to justify my afflictions, none being readily apparent for one ordained blameless. If He will never reveal His problems with me, magnifying my sins to an importance beyond any human's understanding, I may have to look within myself, searching for greater wisdom to explain His displeasure with me.
Joseph: What can you find in your deeds, justifying Him to interfere in your steps to discover reasons for His displeasure, responding only with silence when you wonder why blamelessness is never enough, never telling you what else must be done to gain righteousness?
Job: I am not a wicked person, being secure as one priding in deeds of righteousness, never rejoicing in doing evil or delighting in wicked acts, never walking in darkness, but always in the light, believing its righteousness surrounds me. I protest, having no evil