Todays Thought

Today's Thought from Job 27-31

Job is wrapping up his dialog with his friends in these chapters. He is confident of his faithfulness to the Lord, and that regardless of his situation he will remain faithful. As he searches for answers to why he finds himself where he does he reminisces about what his life has been like. He defends his life, his deeds his actions toward others and tries to further understand how he has arrived at this place. He tries to not be bitter with others and with God as he recognizes his fall from influence, resources, etc, and how he has been left among the lowest of the low. He determines that wisdom is "the fear of the Lord" and understanding is to "flee from evil" both items he argues he has demonstrated. He defends his life and actions as though on trial, possibly self introspection to see if there is something he has missed and been unrepentant of, regardless he lists his life and actions and defends them all. He wraps up this section of dialog with lots of if statements, if I have wronged, If I have withheld, if I have caused anyone to stumble, etc… then I should be accountable.

It is comforting to me to read about such men as Job, not because of their suffering but because of their response. Job's response was in some ways exactly what you would expect, and yet in other so very, very, distinctly different. As I believe most of us do in times of trial and trouble, we self examine to see what we have done to cause the situation. Sometimes it is easy to identify other times it seems to have no clear origin, We contemplate and act on all we can do to resolve the situation we find ourselves. Sometimes we are able to resolve the issue, other times it seems that no matter what we do we can't find resolution. We justify our actions, we may defend our efforts, we may withdrawn to try and escape. These are many of the responses that you would expect to see. But Job even in these times, is faithful and doesn't blame God, He knows that God's ways are greater; God's ways are beyond our understanding. It is God who gave us life and we must trust because we have been told, that it is God who desires us even more than we desire him. (an extremely difficult concept to grasp in itself) This is one thing Job seemed certain of, that is regardless of how bleak his existence became, the God he loved and knew would remain his God. This was not out of duty, this was because Job, had a deep and personal relationship with his God. That I believe is where the difference comes into play. Had Job not know his God so deeply and personally, would have he remained faithful when in his heart he knew that he stood blameless. He had been obedient in life and this is his reward. Too often people fall way in times of trouble blaming God, blaming self, blaming others, what ever the reason is, many turn from God in insurmountable trial, sure initially we almost all always turn to God in normal crisis, But when it gets really bad, when there is no apparent hope, where will we be in those moments. We know of Jobs reward in the end and still we have many believers turn their back to God in deep trials. Job weathers this storm without the knowledge of the future restoration, Will we weather our storms with Job's patience and faithfulness.

Have a great day