JOB 1:20-22 – Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
THEME OF THE DAY. CLUELESS BUT NOT FAITHLESS. We hold huge advantages over Job. We know his life story from start to finish. We know the ins and outs of what happened to this man of God. We know the main characters in the unseen conflict surrounding Job. Yes, Job knew his God but he didn’t know the work God was doing in his life till afterwards. Nor did he know the devil was God’s agent to do this work. And this itself is a powerful and needed lesson in our lives as well. The words of the prophet Isaiah need to be words we not only know, but cling to as we live out the mystery of the Christian life – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). These truths of the prophet become very real and personal to Job. They will also become “close friends” in our experience if we want to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And this is hard. It was hard for Job. It will be hard for us. Yet, Job did not fall away from the faith. Nor did he walk away from the faith because God wouldn’t give either deliverance from his suffering or answer all Job’s questions.
Sadly, we may each know someone who appeared to walk with the Lord Jesus, maybe even for a long time, but some traumatic event, loss, or questions arose that God didn’t answer to their liking and the individual abandoned the faith. Not Job. He may have initially been clueless about the work of God in his life, but he wasn’t faithless toward the God who was at work in his life. And we may follow the God-honoring example of Job by remembering two things.
First, our circumstances in life will change but the God of our circumstances will not. One of the most comforting truths we should hold dear to our hearts is the unchanging nature of our God. He declares, “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). Job’s circumstances changed from one extreme to another. Read chapter one of his book and see the drastic swing in his circumstances, yet, his God did not change. And He will not change in our circumstances either. Praise Him amid changing circumstances for being our unchanging God.
Next, God is patient with us as we struggle through difficult and changing circumstances. Read Job 3. Job is so distraught. As we read this suffering saint pour out his soul, a person just wants to hug him, and let him cry on a shoulder. And yet, as Job complained, God didn’t rebuke him. The Puritan pastor Thomas Watson said, “We may complain to God, but not of God.” That is wise counsel. God knows our hearts and is willing to listen to the hurting heart of His child cry out to Him. One of the most precious times in prayer will be when we pour our hearts to God during difficult times. And He loves us still.
Yes, God’s ways and not our ways. Like Job, there will be times we are clueless over what God is doing in our lives, but we don’t have to be faithless. He can be trusted, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to trust You even when I don’t feel or sense You.”
QUOTE: “True faith in Christ does not rely upon understanding the ways of God, but relying on His Person.”