And yet the waves keep crashing. Over and over again. The needs mounting high. Resources dwindling. Threats of one sort or another peering down. Support systems blown by the casting of blame. Defeat seems certain. We whine. We question. Hang our heads down low in despair. Hopefully, we refuse to ever curse His name, but instead might curse all others. Heaviness looms deep. The difficulty and unknown are intense. We can't quite fathom those who have walked through worse. The light at the end of the tunnel is but a cheap cliche`. We've all walked down that road a time or two before.
Today, we'll peer into the life of one who walked all that and more...
Job, who, as I read, I picture a faithful but broken man staring into the Heaven's in utter disbelief, agony, and oppression as everything He had and knew was no longer and contrary to his deepest desires the world keeps turning. Scripture describes the day Job's life got turned upside-down and inside-out as such:
Job 13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting at the oldest brother’s house, 14 a messenger arrived at Job’s home with this news: “Your oxen were plowing, with the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 when the Sabeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
16 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “The fire of God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep and all the shepherds. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
17 While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with this news: “Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
18 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. 19 Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
His response?
Job1:20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. 21 He said,
“I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!”
22 In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.
In one day, he lost his livestock, his servants, and his children. Following that, his body is struck with disease and his wife encourages him to "curse God and die." Hardship, loss, difficulty, and blame all come crashing down. Everything is affected. His health, reputation, finances, relationships...Blow after blow. Yet, even in his misery and his complaining to the Lord and his friends, he curses the day he was born, refuses to forsake his God, but praises His name!
We read through the book of Job and come to the place where it all changes...
"Then, the Lord answered Job out of the storm..."Answered can mean what we know it to mean, but it can also mean to lift up... And that He does. He lifts Job up so to speak as He steps in and in many more words says, (and I paraphrase) remember the One to whom you belong who has neither lost you nor forgotten you. Do you not remember who fashioned the universe, named the stars, set in storehouses hail and snow? Do you not know who fixed the gates and doors to the seas and wrapped the clouds in their garments? Where were you when the One who set the planets in motion and gave limits to all that seems wreckless and wild? Oh yeah. You weren't there. That was Me. I am the I am... the One who is ever-present and all powerful, Creator of all things. I restrain the waves of the sea, send lightening bolts crashing from the Heavens, direct the currents of the deep, and move mountains with a word. I fashioned man from the dust and breathed life into his nostrils, yet, you, in your ignorance question my wisdom?
And as I type, my youngest son approaches me to borrow something I am using. I tell him no, not right now I am using it. Only to have him follow up with the "how" question. After lifting my jaw, I may have looked at him a little cross-eyed in disbelief that he was challenging me with all of his 4 foot self. Instantly, I replied "it is of no concern to you how I am using it, just know that I am." And in that, through my very own mouth, I hear my Father's voice... "Ok, Lord. You win."
Like Job, like my boy, I want in on all the details. I want to fully know what I've done right. What I've done wrong. Why is this happening instead of that? Where is all this going? What's the point? But, it's here, in chapter 42, Job recognizes who God is, how no plan of His can be thwarted, and He repents. It's with that repentance that the limited powers of hell are shut down. There has come a change of heart and a shift in perspective in Job. While Job wasn't walking in gross, known sin... it was through the difficulty that He realized that he hadn't quite summed God up just right. However righteous he may have been, therein also lay a skewed perspective that required some adjustment.
With that, God gives him the opportunity to pray for the very friends that had raked Job over with false accusations and Scripture tells us that "the Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first."Job 42:12. Sometimes, it's only through utter devastation we are quickened to recognize the authority, sovereignty, justness of God. And on the other side, we find ourselves in very privileged positions to turn around and offer unfathomable grace to others while we stand in the gap for them through prayer. "My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer, and not deal with you according to your folly."(Job 42:8)
Wherever you find yourself, I pray it be a place of humility and repentance that you would walk in fellowship with the Lord. May praises be equally on your lips in the midst of sorrow as in the midst of joy! He is worthy to be praised because of who He is not because of the circumstances we find ourselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfVd5x9W1Xc "So Will I", Hillsong Worship
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. Acts 3:9
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.Matthew 3:8
For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.
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