Thursday, January
3, 2019
To rightly understand the lessons
of Job’s life we must consider both the height of his ease as well as the depth
of his trouble. As his story opens, we
have the good times:
There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area. Job 1:1-3(NLT)
Job was a rich man, but also
righteous (not perfect, but always remembering God was God, and Job was not). The Accuser, Satan, wanted Job…for lunch:
One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them. “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan. Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.” Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence. Job 1:6-12(NLT)
The story continues with Job’s
children dying in a freak accident, his health, possessions and position in the
community being taken from him, and his wife giving up, counselling Job to just
curse God and die. The man went from
hero to zero in 25 verses; he’d been the richest, most respected man in the
region, enjoying the ease of the good life to a childless
beggar, sitting in the misery of dust and ashes, nursing the boils that covered
his body, and enduring the snarky harping of his less-than-pleased wife.
The next forty chapters of Job’s
story are the meat of humans (Job and his three friends) trying to figure out
why bad things happen to good people. Or,
if Job wasn’t a good person underneath, and his life was all a sham, a
pretention to Godliness, what, exactly, had this sufferer done to tick God off
that bad?
Fast-forwarding to the end of the
story, we find God speaking to interrupt heaven’s silence in light of Job and
his friend’s questions. God answers Job with
a hard challenge: Job, if you have it figured
out, YOU instruct me; you tell ME how this should end. And to Job’s credit, he knew when it was time
to shut his mouth. He listened, waited,
and kept obedient through the storm of his death valley, and God did what God
does – He gave Job a lesson more valuable than his previous riches. God taught him to look outside the feeling in
his gut, to the troubles others face:
When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before! Then all his brothers, sisters, and former friends came and feasted with him in his home. And they consoled him and comforted him because of all the trials the Lord had brought against him. And each of them brought him a gift of money and a gold ring. So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning. Job 42:10-12(NLT)
Job learned that the response to
tragedy and adversity is trusting God.
Truth be told, Satan understood human nature, and went right for the
jugular in pushing all the buttons connected to Job’s trust in God. He knew that this rich man’s dream life hadn’t
been tested with a choice between his wealth and his Creator. Satan had it figured out that the temptation
to sell-out for a few pieces of silver can overcome a shaky faith. After all, Adam and Eve had caved for just a
single bite of what God had and they didn’t!
The one thing Satan never figured
out (and perhaps still hasn’t) is that God will allow tests of our
strength. He will at times even allow the
beating, bruising, battering ordeal of crosses and tombs. Every bit of it must pass under the scrutiny
of a sovereign God! Our ever-present
question, WHY? Is never answered until, in hindsight, and in trust,
we see the marks of God’s guiding presence in what we’ve been through.
For You Today
God’s purposes are our blessing,
and they are rarely understood in the ease of being on top of the heap;
sometimes it’s got to fall on us to do any good!
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