Is it wrong to be frustrated with God?

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day… What had he lived for, and what should he live for?

I may give way to rebellion and discontent in learning the utter wretchedness of man on earth, but the sense of this is necessary to full self-renunciation. I ought not to blame God for it, but I need to realize it as man's true place.

What little way a soul makes when occupied with self-justification! The friends had stung him with reproaches, that his afflictions must be on account of sin. Job, unconscious of any evil that would warrant such suffering, denies it. The reproaches which the Lord bore without reply, though unjustly heaped upon Him, Job rebuts because he has not seen himself as he is before God.

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him… I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.

Now it is that he arrives at the end, desired of God, in all the discipline to which He has been subjecting him. Job now seeing God, forms a true estimate of himself, and repents in dust and ashes. The blameless man, in nature good, and as a man upright, when brought into the presence of God abhors himself… Before, and in the presence of God, he can claim nothing, expect nothing, and feel himself entitled to nothing.

Job has now done with himself. Happy fruit and consummation of all discipline! And so completely is he freed from himself that, before there is any relief from the circumstances and trial… he can pray for his friends.

Whatever way the trial may come, we should realise that it comes, even if not directly, from our God and Father, "who will not suffer…(us) to be tempted above that" we are able to bear (1 Cor. 10:13).

What Satan could not do, the friends of Job succeeded in doing. They told Job that God was punishing him for his sins, and in his righteous anger against them he spoke of God in a most unbecoming way. God allowed this testing at the hands of his friends to show that Job, righteous man though he was, that he had a good opinion of himself.

This most severe trial manifested "the endurance of Job" (James 5:11), and that "the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." We also learn how God allows, yea directs, the testing of His own workmanship in His saints for His own triumph and glory, and for the furtherance of His own good work while blessing His own.

It is no rare page in the history of God's servants for discouragement and withering to set in, from the very point of their greatest success. So was it with David… So was it with Jonah… So is it with Elijah.

He requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers.

He learns the superiority of the still small voice of God to all the outward demonstrations; a lesson which he needed much, for doubtless the wondrous scene at Carmel had unduly filled his vision at the expense of that personal link which would have sustained him under subsequent disappointment.

Such reverses and hours of darkness are necessary for such a servant; aye, as necessary in God's discipline as are his brightest moments, for then it is that he learns for himself the power of the Invisible.

Though he was a believer in the goodness of God, he was envious of those who could boast of wealth and prominence… What is the motive behind this envy? It is plain, palpable selfishness! How much better to be objective in considering this matter! — that is, to regard it from God's viewpoint rather than our own.

Trying hard to understand this, he found it too painful for him — until he went into the sanctuary of God. He deeply needed God's presence if he was to find any answer to his problem, — and there he found an unexpected but perfectly righteous answer.

Well may the heart therefore look far above the present apparent circumstances to find its rest and contentment in the living God! "Whom have I in heaven but You?" … Though his flesh and his heart fail, as his experience had taught him, yet he could confidently say, "But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

What a difference it makes when the heart is conscious of the Father's love in the time of chastening. We should always be resting in the Father's love no matter how trying the circumstances and conditions of life. We should always realise that trying experiences are the proof of the Father's delight in us.

Those who despise it treat God's dealings with contempt, in ignorance or self-will, whereas those who faint manifest natural timidity that has not been set aside through confidence in God.

Even where we cannot at all understand God's ways with us, there should be the meek and quiet submission in the knowledge of God's perfect love and wisdom.

When trial comes, the first resource of the Christian, as also the first movement of the new man, is prayer. And God always hears the prayers of His saints. Thus strengthened from on high, the Christian is capable of passing through trial in the spirit of obedience.

"But let patience have her perfect work." Patience sustains for one to wait according to God for the issue of the trial, without taking the shortest way that the flesh teaches.