The story of Job so far has been one of tragedy after tragedy. He lost everything including all of his ten children, his livestock, and his dignity. His wife has betrayed him. His friends are accusing him instead of supporting him. And God is silent. The purpose of our study through Job is to gain wisdom by entering into the undeserved suffering of Job. Many people believe that the purpose of Job is to help us understand why bad things happen to good people. But the message of Job is really to help us to know God better and gain wisdom so that when we or others encounter suffering, we are able to walk through it with confident trust in a wise and gracious God. We are all hardwired to think that things should be fair. As a child, if you ever got punished for something you didn’t do, and you watched as the guilty party walked away with no punishment, then you know how unfair life can be. As we get older, we see how the rich get richer through taking advantage of the vulnerability of others. We see the government make unjust decisions. We watch as the poor and aging are neglected while the wealthy and powerful live it up. We know that life isn’t fair, but we believe deeply that it ought to be. This deep longing for fairness is a testimony to the justice of God. Yet, as we see in Job, even those who deserve God’s blessings don’t always get it. That is because there is more to say about God. He is just, but he is not limited to behaving in how we would like his justice should play out in our lives. Remember, he has a whole world to govern, filled with all sorts of overlapping and colliding problems that he manages not only through justice but with wisdom, patience, and grace. Today, we are in Job chapters 8-10 in which we see both a speech from Bildad and a response from Job. Bildad is concerned with keeping Job aligned with a right view of God. He has God neatly placed in a box of his own imagination, one in which evil gets punished and the righteous are blessed. Job has experienced a dramatic form of punishment in Bildad’s view, therefore he must have done something terribly wrong. Not only that, but now Job seems to be accusing God of perverting justice. So, in Bildad’s view, Job did something to deserve what he got and if he continues to claim he is righteous, he is a heretic and should get the full wrath of God’s justice. Job responds by talking about why he is holding onto hope, followed by a lament that is brutally honest yet still somewhat hopeful. Job held a similar view to Bildad and his other friends. He believed the same things about God’s justice. It’s easy to believe that when life is going well. It’s easy for the prosperous to promote the prosperity gospel. But, what about when a righteous person suffers? Keep in mind, righteousness does not mean perfection. It means devotion to God, which includes regular repentance and reconciliation, which is how Job lived. And he is not letting go of this testimony. He believes, and it is true, that he has done nothing to deserve his suffering. This continues to be the great dilemma of the story. The main message today is that God is not limited to our understanding of him. When we accept that there is much more to God than our limited understanding, we can approach him with humility and honesty. Only when we seek the truth about God with this posture of humility and honesty will we have a source of hope that can withstand any injustice or suffering we experience. Let’s begin by reading Job 8:1-7