Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:20 (NKJV)
In one single day, Job lost more than any of us will ever lose in a lifetime. Follow along with me as his day unravels: First, a messenger arrives with this news: “The Sabeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.” The first messenger is still speaking when another messenger approaches. “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.” The words are barely out of his mouth when a third messenger turns up. “Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.” Starting to sound familiar? As if that wasn’t enough, a fourth messenger arrives; “Your sons and daughters… are all dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
In just a few moments, Job’s life went from beautiful to broken, from prosperous to poor. Given the same situation, I believe many of us would cry out, “Why God? Why?” Yet Job’s response was, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
To be honest, my response to hardship is nothing like Job’s. It’s not that I don’t trust God to know what is best, it’s more a feeling of disappointment, as though I’m entitled to a trouble-free life. Because my expectations regarding how God should act are sometimes way off base. “Much of the frustration we experience as Christians has nothing to do with what God does or doesn’t do. It has everything to do, rather, with the false assumptions we make about how we think God will and should act.” (Blackaby, Experiencing God Day by Day: Devotional and Journal).
Not Job. His was the heartfelt declaration of a man who categorically believed his circumstances were not a streak of bad luck but part of God’s sovereign purpose. He didn’t argue with God; “I worked hard for all this!” He didn’t question God; “Why me?” He didn’t blame God; “I’ve been faithful to you and now you do this to me?” He didn’t curse God, though his wife urged him to. Instead, he affirmed that, whatever his circumstances, God was sovereign.
You and I understand loss. Maybe not to this extent, but we’ve experienced other losses: loved ones, the death of long-cherished dreams, the loss of the future we envisioned. Yet we have a choice: we can blame God or we can praise God despite the hardship.
As for Job, the Bible offers a beautiful tribute to his unwavering faith in God; “In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.”
Thought: “Suffering creates the possibility of growth in holiness, but only to those who, by letting all else go, are open to the training—not by arguing with the Lord about what they did or did not do to deserve punishment, but by praying, “Lord, show me what You have for me in this.” Elisabeth Elliot, A Path Through Suffering
Prayer: Lord, I do not ask for you to give me a trouble-free life but to give me a heart that is willing to say, “Show me what You have for me in this.” Amen.