After the handsome District Attorney Harvey Dent loses his fiancee and burns half his face with an electric cord, a set-up of the Joker, Dent wants revenge. Batman confronts Dent, now Two-face, with murderous intent to take the lives of an innocent boy and his family with the means (a gun) to do it.
“It’s not about what I want,” he screams at Batman, “it’s about what’s FAIR!” (The Dark Knight)
When we’ve experienced a tragedy, we find it difficult to yield our sense of injustice. The Lord responds to Job’s complaint of unfairness by presenting him with natural and animal creation where fairness never enters in the equation. By holding on to God or life having misused us, we cling to our being right, and God wrong.
I went through an experience similar to what Job experienced. He had sought to bring God to court to sue for justice over all his disasters. For many years, our talented and committed son Paul and his wife Juli battled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with Juli also suffering from extreme chemical sensitivities. In 2005 I wrote:
Today in prayer, the Lord touched me. As I reflected on Job’s cry of complaint against God’s injustice, I also thought of how he was forced at the end of the book to retract. I realized that I also had to retract my complaint against God’s injustice for Paul and Juli’s illness, my resentment, my anger against God. I had to be content with knowing and loving him better. Tears flooded my eyes. It’s hard for me to give up my sense of rightness, my wanting to be right (and God wrong), but there is freedom in letting him be God and just reaching out to him in love and adoration in spite of the pain.
The Lord may be asking you what he asked Job, “Would you impugn my justice? Would you condemn me that you may be right?” (40:8) Are you clinging to a sense of injustice for what life has dealt you? Can you let God be sovereign and grieve through your heartache? Reaching out to him in spite of your pain, you may also find true freedom.
