“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1:21
My husband, Dave, had started training to be a truck driver four weeks ago and finally got to come home last Thursday! He’s home for a week and then will be gone for another four to six weeks. It seems like things have gone from bad to worse lately. A year ago, Dave had his own business, working out of our home. We were comfortable with the amount of money we were making. I did not have to work and had plenty of time to seek God and write. Dave was home all the time, and the girls and I got to spend lots of time with him. He helped me with the chores, with the kids, with my emotional stability (lol), with everything. And now he is gone most the time.
The company that he is driving for does not pay well and treats their employees pretty badly. It seems that they are happier to continually hire and train new drivers than they are to keep the ones they’ve already got. And even though I fought it tooth and nail, I am starting a part-time job next week. I was talking with Dave, asking him why things seem to have gone so badly. How could God have let things take such a bad turn in so many different areas?
And then God reminded me of Job. He had a very blessed life, and then He lost it all, his children, his servants, and his animals. And then he became sick. (Wow, I’m starting to appreciate that my trials aren’t that bad!) Satan had insinuated that Job only loved God for the good things He had given him. So God allowed satan to take these things away, within limits, and Job proved God right. Job continued to trust Him throughout this whole ordeal.
I feel like Job. We had life just the way we wanted it before. We were content with our money, our job, out time together. And now much of it has been taken away, and things are so hard from many different angles. And I believe the point is to prove that we love God, not for the good things He gives us, but just for God, Himself. Will we still love and adore Him when things aren’t as good as they used to be? Is our love based on what He can give us? Or is it just based on who He is?
He is still our precious, perfect, beautiful, GOOD God, and I do love Him, even when everything seems to be going wrong. God is allowing us to prove this fact to ourselves, and to all of heaven and earth who are watching. And my glimmer of hope is that at the end of the story of Job, when Job’s testing was over, God restored everything that he had, even twice what he had before. But no matter how our story ends, God is good, and He loves us. His current plan for us is a perfect, loving plan. So we can rest in that fact of who He is, and we can kneel before Him in awe and reverence and adoration and say, “We submit to Your will because we trust You, precious Father. We love You, Jesus. Amen.”
“The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first…” Job 42:12
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