Job 14:1-22
Many people have the same idea as Job about God: an all-powerful Being who acts arbitrarily, without taking account of anyone, and whose ways are quite beyond our understanding. Man is entirely at His mercy, like a leaf driven to and fro by the wind (Job 13:25), and the only thing he can do is to try to shelter in the best way he can from God’s attacks. This "fatalism" is found in most Eastern religions. It is certainly true that God is all-powerful and acts according to His sovereign will. It is equally true that man is weak and dependent; that he "cometh forth like a flower and is cut down" (v. 2; 1 Peter 1:24). But it is not true that God makes a plaything of man, controlling him for His own pleasure (v. 20). On the contrary, He cares for His creature and will not break the "bruised reed" (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20).
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" asks Job (v. 4). Later he cries, "My transgression is sealed up in a bag" (v. 17). He has no understanding of the fulness of grace, as is always the case when someone is occupied with self-justification. Does each one of us know Him as the One who completely cleanses the defiled sinner and who has thrown the "bag" containing all our sins into the depths of the sea? (Micah 7:19).