Job Lived...

“Now the LORD blessed the latter days…more than his beginnings…After this, Job lived…” Job 42:12, 16

Job records one of the longest dialogs with God since the beginning of time. Job was a man who was described as one who sought righteousness and followed the commandments of God. His reverence for God and his resistance toward sin were a few things uncommon to most men of his time. And yet with all those blessings He had been given, God brought forth a season of adversity like he had never known before.

If you have never read all the adversity that Job experienced it is well worth the read. If any of us experienced even one of these it would be enough to unravel us. No doubt that Job took His questions directly to the One with the answers but what he received was quite different than what he anticipated. God in His great sovereignty knew that the only way to help Job understand his limited view of God was to reveal his ignorance on God’s limitless power.

In times of our greatest suffering and our most confusing moments we, too will question God. ‘Where are You? Why are You silent? When will You act? Why are You letting this happen? What have I done? Don't You love me?’ There are terrible things that happen to us on earth that shake our very foundation and threaten our faith. We go to God for answers, or worse we distance ourselves from Him. Just like with Job, many times God will require that we understand His will for our lives or the lives of those we love over our own will. Just like with Job, our questions to God are sometimes replaced with God’s questions to us. ‘Do you trust Me? Do you believe I act from a place of love or rather from a place of anger? Will you surrender your idea of the outcome over My wisdom in this situation?’ God included this example of living in the tension of what we want and what He assigns to our lives. He expects our questions to Him but He also expects our answers when He questions our attitudes and actions.

With the certainty of adversity in our lives, we also have the certainly of God’s faith to carry us through anything we face. The two beautiful words that the end of Job promises are the same two words that we can anchor our circumstances to… ‘Job lived…’. God didn’t have to include these words but He did. Job lived through losing all his material belongings. Job lived through the death of 99% of his family. Job lived through the judgment of his closest friends. He lived through traumatic medical issues. And he didn’t just live through them but he was blessed exponentially after He surrendered His own will for His life to the only One who had the power to give Him life. I too have lived through divorce…sinful living…marital uncertainty...a prodigal child…death of a parent… death of a sister…times without work…time with very little faith. But just like Job, I can honestly say that the blessings in my later life have been even greater than in my earlier life. ‘ I even can see that those loved ones who now reside in Heaven still live. They live in greater blessing than this world has ever given them. I lived through their deaths and will one day live with them in eternal Life!

'He was a man greatly tested by God and even more greatly blessed by God.’ Kristi Walker, Christianity.com [and so are we!]