Hey, welcome to today's encouragement. It's coming your way from Our Daily Bread. The devotional for today titled Restraining Order was written by Kenneth Peterson.

A man in court filed a restraining order against God. He claimed God had been particularly

unkind to him and had exhibited a seriously negative attitude. The presiding judge dismissed the

suit saying the man needed help not from the court, but for his mental health.

A true story, humorous, but also sad. But are we so different? Don't we sometimes want to say,

stop God, please, I've had enough. Job did, and he put God on trial in Job chapter 13. After enduring unspeakable personal tragedies,

Job says, I want to argue my case with God himself, and imagines taking God to court. He even puts

forth a restraining order, saying,

withdraw your hand far from me and stop frightening me.

Job's prosecution argument wasn't his own innocence, but what he viewed as God's unreasonable

harshness, does it please you to oppress me? Sometimes we feel God is unfair. In truth, the story of Job

is complex, not providing easy answers. God restores Job's physical fortunes in the end,

but that isn't always his plan for us. Perhaps we find something of a verdict in Job's

final admission in Chapter 42 when he said, surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too

wonderful for me to know. The point is, God has reasons we know nothing of. And there's wonderful hope in that.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Job, chapter 13, verses 1 through 12. My eyes have seen all this. My ears have

heard and understood it. What you know, I also know. I am not inferior to you. But I desire to speak to

the Almighty and to argue my case with God. You, however,

smear me with lies. You are worthless physicians, all of you. If only you would be altogether

silent. For you, that would be wisdom. Hear now my argument.

Listen to the pleas of my lips.

Will you speak wickedly on God's behalf?

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