This week in my bible reading my wife pointed out something I hadn’t seen before. In Job 19:23, he [Job] says, “ Oh that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll…” I found that very amazing that he didn’t realize then that a part of his life would go down as the “trial” of all time. He probably never realized that he would become this “spiritual legend”. People everywhere—churched and unchurched—know the story of Job. A man that once had it all, but God in his sovereignty decided allow a period of extreme testing (see Job 23:10). Similar to last week, I will share some morsels of practicality that I picked up from reading his story.
The first truth is that God only recommends his best. I think it is easy to sit back and read the story of Job and start to think that God is like some kid with a magnifying glass trying to burn insects. This is a tragic view because it doesn’t paint God in the proper light. First of all, God is not out to spoil our fun or be a kill-joy. And despite how all-powerful he is, bad things can happen to good people. I don’t believe this is the case with Job’s story but I have to mention this because this story seems to fall into the category of how God is unaware or unable to detect and prevent evil from happening. Job is clearly recommended by the Almighty to Satan--twice! (see Job 1:7,2:3) This tells me a couple things about God. He was proud of Job’s character. Look at Job 1:8:
Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
God would not recommend Job to Satan if he did not know from the beginning that he could stand the calamities Satan would bring upon him (see John 10:10). The creator God knew what Satan would do to Job and he still allowed it. God had big plans for Job. He was highly favored in God’s eyes. This also let’s me know that just because I’m enduring a trial does not me that I am a sinner. I can be a child of God, favored by him and enduring terminal cancer, or a divorce or any number of attacks from Satan. A serious mistruth I was brought up to believe was that if a person was enduring trials that they must not be in [right] relationship with God. This could be the furthest thing from the truth, because this is not always the case as we see with Job. When I uncovered this truth, it helped me have better relationships with people because I did not rush to judge them based on their situation. Why? Because after some time, I found myself the target of Satan’s attacks; knowing all the while that I had a right relationship with God. Be confident today man or woman of God that if you are enduring a trial that is producing every fruit of the Spirit named under heaven in you that it is because God has recommended you!
Next is something that I preacth to my children constantly. True friends give true advice. My wife and I affectionately refer to negative influences as “knuckleheads” and Job could not have had a “better” bunch of them around him. For those of you that have true friends that tell you the truth and pray for you when you’re up or down you can appreciate this. In most cases, we look for individuals that will speak the truth in love in our tough times. As I read this story, I see how Job’s friends seem almost glad that he finally has a bad day. As if they were secretly thinking that he was sinning all along. Maybe they were what we call now “haters”. They went from subtly suggesting that he should repent to telling him that only evil men endure the things that he faced. Rather than project onto Job what they were themselves struggling with they should have been praying to God on his behalf. This is a lesson for us all to submit our requests to the Lord—for ourselves or our friends—and receive direction from him before pursue giving advice to someone in need (see Philippians 4:6).
Lastly, God’s plan isn’t always revealed to us. We all know how the story of Job ends with him receiving “double for his trouble”. When I was thinking about this the other day though, I said to myself, “but did he even want double”? I mean, if he knew that he would endure such pain and frustration and that he would lose all he had including his children, would he still go through? If I were Job, I would have liked for God to secretly convene with me and say, “I’m going to recommend you to Satan and it is going to seem like the end of the world for you for a while, but in the end I’ll give you double of everything, or you can just keep things the same and go about life. Which one?” Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen. But you have to wonder which option Job would have chosen. I’m going down this tangent to prove that the part in us that wants God to give us a choice shows our lack of trust and faith in his best for us. Job knew within his heart of hearts that “his Redeemer lives…[and that]…he would see him one day” (see Job 19:25-27) and that was probably his only hope for a large part of his trial. The fact that we are tested by God does not mean that we are not loved or that we should try figure out what he is up to in our lives. Do you think Job is in heaven now questioning God about all of that now? He obviously sees now how that test has provided the blueprint for Christians everywhere to adopt the correct perspective for every trial faced in life—that God is in control. All we have to do is trust the plan God has for us, and we can become a spiritual legend in his eyes!