Do I hear you right, Job, in your outburst against God in 7:12? I hear you speaking with such bitter anger, such withering scorn when you say to God, "Am I the Sea or the Dragon, that you set a guard over me?" I wonder sometimes that if Emily Bronte ever wrote a sequel she might call it "Withering Scorn." But that is dumb of me to say, once again. Here we are, on your big point in attack of God and I am playing cutesy with words.
You know, as I get older, I think my mind becomes more "random" rather than more "controlled." Oh, I have no difficulty following or making an argument (I even get paid to do so), but I like the mind play suggested by the word "random." You know, Job, I want to tell you a story about how I first learned the word "random." I was in fourth grade, and I was sort of out of control at times. I never seemingly could focus on the work of the class. My teacher told me that I had a "random" mind. I didn't know what that meant, but I wasn't too bothered. But then, while I was supposed to be doing something else, I walked over to the unabridged dictionary which we had in the classroom, looked at the spine and saw at the bottom that it said "Random House." I didn't know what it meant, but I figured that maybe there were a houseful of random people, just like me somewhere, and that it somehow related to a big dictionary. Maybe to be random meant that you always were interested in words, I thought. That is my earliest memory of randomness, Job, and here I am, wandering off again! Thank you for understanding.
Actually, I wonder if my random mind makes me more attuned to the "randomness" of your conversation with your friends. You know, sometimes the conversation or the flow of ideas is so very clear in your book, but other times I just can't follow anyone at all. What I mean is that you say, "I know that my redeemer/avenger lives (19:25)," but then your next three lines are absolutely incoherent. You speak about someone standing on the dust and destroying bodies and seeing God from your flesh and seeing other things that don't make sense to me before somethings is consumed with longing. All I am thinking, Job, is "Random, random."
Well, you aren't the only one who does it. I think Eliphaz has the disease too, don't you think? He seems to be SO UPSET with you when he speaks in ch.22. He tells you that you are a wicked guy and that you have all kinds of evil conceptions of God (22:12-14), but then it is almost as if his lying has gotten the better of him, and he begins to mutter about the wicked and the righteous in the most incoherent lines (22:17-20) Thus, I think I am on pretty good ground in being so random at times. You guys set the pattern.
But there is genuine pain when you say your words in 7:12. "Am I the Sea?" It is as if you are looking at God and saying, "Am I so big, God, so much of a threat to you that you have to torment me so?" Your fundamental belief, Job, is not only that God has brought these distresses on you but that God has, as it were, singled you out for torment and continues to harass and vex and annoy you, even in your dreams. You settle into your couch at night, trying to get comfortable, and then God appears to you as the cosmic boogeyman: "you (God) scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions (7:14)."
But here is my question, Job. You know why you have such problems with God? Because, to use words from 2005, you believe you have a "personal relationship" with God. Evangelicals are big on that phrase today, Job. They go around saying, "I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" (or God...it means about the same thing), and they wear it as sort of a badge, a kind of confirmation that they are special or somehow intimately connected to the power source of the universe. You believe that too. If God was a great power in the universe, but an impersonal energy force, you seemingly wouldn't have a problem with God, would you? But you have to believe that God has, in the words of that terrible TV show that they took off the air a few years ago, "singled you out" for special torment. But, even though life would have been easier for you had you believed in an impersonal God, or no god at all, you don't. Having a "personal relationship" with God augments your torment. Maybe it would do the same for all of us if we really thought about it.