Job 13:5 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
Job’s response in this verse is commendable and true and then at the same time damning and false. He maintains both trust in God and trust in self. He first says in response to God that he will trust Him even if He kills him. This is an amazing statement of faith: whatever God does I will still believe that He is good. He knows what He is doing and He is doing a good and right thing for me, regardless of how it feels to me at the moment. Oh, that we could all be given such faith.
But then he contradicts what he just confessed, by defending his own works and ways. Is he trusting in the Lord alone for goodness and salvation, or is he trusting in himself, that his own works righteousness saves him? And so it is with us, who are at the same time saints and sinners. We are saints who trust Jesus for full salvation, and at the same time we are sinners who defend our own ways. Job wanted an audience with God to accuse Him for treating him unfairly.