I finished reading Job this morning. Looking back over the book, I realize that God works in our lives in mysterious ways and does not feel a need to explain to us what has happened. Job was living what we used to call "the life of Riley."Then one day everything is gone - all of his children, all of his cattle, his reputation and the respect of his wife. His wife looks at the whole thing and says, "Why don't you just curse God and die?" Now, that is a loving thing to say. Then his three best friends visit him and spend the whole time ragging on him about what he had done wrong. A young man Elihu rags on him further. All the while, Job is sitting there in all of his misery, wondering what in the word has happened? We know what happened, but Job, his wife, his three friends and his young friend never learned what happened. They all had their assumptions, but they were all wrong. They stated a lot of truths that would have been appropriate in some cases, but not in this case. Job made an assumption, for lack of a better explanation, that God was picking on him for no reason at all. He was terribly upset with God. God comes to Job in the middle of a storm and does not explain to Job what happened, but takes him to task for questioning His sovereignty, and blaming Him for all of His troubles when Satan was the main culprit. Job was vindicated in the end, but he had lessons to learn just as his critics did. We know that Job's trials were not for his sins, but because he was faithful. What I think, for what it's worth, is that Job, though a good man, had become smug in his faith. Perhaps, he had gotten to a point that he thought he was above all of the other troubles of mankind. In His talk with Job, God explained to him that he was not God. Job's lesson was that he could suffer like all other people, and that he needed to recognize that God was the reason for his great life and not Job himself. In our suffering, we do not need to blame God for our troubles, but have faith in Him and know that He works all of the times in our lives for our good. We do not need to blame God when we need Him the most. We might never know why we are suffering, but we can be assured that God is aware and that he is working it out for our good - which Job eventually discovered.
Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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