God Wants Your Complaints
February 14, 2018·Jon Berglund
“I am unworthy—how can I reply to You? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer, twice, but I will say no more.” – Job 40:4-5
Job is a book about questions and complaints. And, if you’ve been reading it, you’ve probably got a few yourself. But, for this very reason, the Book of Job can be a guide to us when we find ourselves with more questions than answers.
The Jewish people have a long history of complaining. Sometimes, that complaining appears as lament (complaining to God) and sometimes as grumbling (complaining about God). Often, that complaining comes in the form of questions.
Consider the children of Israel’s complaint to Moses when they were delivered from slavery. In Exodus 17:3, they grumble to Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” Contrast this with Moses’ earlier complaint to God, in Exodus 5:22: “O LORD, why have You mistreated this people? Why did You ever send me?”
Notice that both complaints were in the form of questions, but only one was directed toward God. Only one, in fact, arose from faith.
Let’s go back to the quote above from Job. We might think that Job’s problem was his speech. We think God is mad at him for provoking God. But Job’s problem wasn’t his speech (see 42:7); his problem was his inability to comprehend the answers. He could not comprehend the span of the Leviathan, let alone the work of Satan. Job’s created mind was too finite to enter into the Creator’s mind. So, God would not justify God’s self to Job (though apparently Job’s friends thought they could – hah!).
The essential thing for Job’s complaint was that it was not an excuse to turn away from God; quite the opposite, it was a decisive turn toward God.
Some of us live with buried complaints. We don’t know why God allows terrible things in our lives. But Job reminds us that God can handle our questions and complaints. They don’t have to mean a lack of faith. Not every complaint is a grumble.
This is why there are entire Psalms of lament, like Psalm 88. Lament isn’t about “positive thinking” – just pain put into voice and directed to God, like the last gasp of Jesus upon the Cross. Yet there, precisely there, where there is so much doubt and hurt, God’s Spirit carries us.
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” – Romans 8:26-27
Take your complaint to God. God wants it.
Pastor Jon Berglund
