Job 21:1-16: a reflection

1Then Job answered, 2“Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. 3Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on. 4As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient? 5Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth. 6When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh. 7“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? 8Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes. 9Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. 10Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry. 11They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. 12They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. 13They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol. 14They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways. 15What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’ 16Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

Job, wrestling with the hard fact that the wicked often prosper, describes them vividly: they grow old, gain strength, see their children established around them, live in security, spend their days in prosperity. And he captures their attitude toward God in their own words: They say to God, Depart from us! We have no desire to know your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him? Prosperity had bred in them a complete self-sufficiency, a sense that they had no need of God at all.

Notice the connection Job draws between prosperity and godlessness. It was precisely because these people were doing so well, secure, comfortable, successful, that they felt no need for God, and even told him to leave them alone. What profit is there in praying to him? they ask, as if the only value of God were what he could add to a life that already seemed complete. Their very prosperity had become a reason to dismiss God. And yet, Job notes, their prosperity is not in their own hand; the security they credit to themselves is not finally theirs to keep.

That is a searching warning, especially for those whose lives are going well. Prosperity, comfort, and success can quietly breed the very attitude Job describes: a self-sufficiency that sees no need for God, that treats prayer as pointless because life already seems full. It is a subtle spiritual danger of good times. Guard against letting your blessings become a reason to dismiss the God who gave them. Your prosperity is not finally in your own hand. Do not let good times breed the godless self-sufficiency that says, what do we need God for?

Lord, Job saw how prosperity bred in the wicked a self-sufficiency that dismissed you: what is the Almighty, that we should serve him? Guard my own heart in good times. When my life is going well, keep my blessings from becoming a reason to feel I have no need of you, to treat prayer as pointless because life seems full. Remind me that my prosperity is not finally in my own hand. Do not let good times breed self-sufficiency in me; keep me depending on you, whether in plenty or in want.