Job is one of the most fascinating books in the Bible. Number one because we do not know who the author of the book is but we know it is a true story because his name is mentioned in other places in the Bible. It's a story about a man who suffered so much unbelievable pain for any one man and yet he never turned against God.
Job is also the kind of book that if you read it over and over again you will always get something new from it as if you are reading it for the first time. A man who lost almost everything including his health is sitting in grief and then have to hear his wife say "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.Job 2:9. He had to hear his friends try to convince him that in order for him to get better, he must repent because he must have committed a sin for something like this to happen to him. Even one of his friends tried to convince him that he is wrong in thinking he didn't do anything wrong by saying one day he had a vision or a dream and the spirit who came to him asked, Is a man more righteous than God? He was giving Job that example to say that how dare you say out of your mouth that you are innocent. Not only that, Job was in so much grief that he wanted God to turn back the hands of time and erase the day that he was born or better yet, he said do not allow me to live at birth. Saying I could have been buried next to the kings with their silver and gold or next to the slaves who's freedom only came with death. Those who were relieved from this life. In other words, let me die at birth so my spirit will continue to live so that there would have been an existence, I just don't want this life in the flesh.
There was a very interesting conversation between Job and the friends and I try to figure out each time I read this story what is the moral of the story. I get different morals like 1) Just because someone is suffering does not mean that they did something wrong. 2) I learn what not to do to a friend who is suffering which is make matters worse by blaming them for their pain. 3)I learned that God gave Satan permission to do whatever he wanted to do with Job but he could not take his life. Meaning he had free will to put any kind of pain on him and yet Job was strong enough to stay with God through the worst that Satan can bring on him. That is incredible when we think about what we go through and it feels like much, but Job had the worst of the worst and it's because God gave Satan permission to do his worst. But Job never cursed God, not even once.
In the story Job asked for a trial from God. Job wanted to know, what is my guilt? Why have you put such a punishment on me and I not know what I have done? Shouldn't everyone get a trial or shouldn't everyone know what they are guilty of before they are sentience with the punishment of the sin? How fair is it to give me my punishment when I don't even know what I have done? Then I thought to myself, he probably wouldn't have had those thoughts had his friends not put in his face that he must have done something wrong. Note: Watch who your friends are!** This is a good example to evaluate your thinking, your friend could be a bad influence** Even though Job knew he did nothing wrong he wanted a trial because, in his mind, God have some explaining to do. And it had gotten to the point where he wanted to prove to his friends that he did nothing wrong by doing the unthinkable. He wanted God to tell him what he did wrong in front of his friends! This is bold because if you are guilty, you would not tell God to tell you want you have done wrong because you already know plus, you don't want to upset God even more by having Him bring it up to you in your face. No one want to face God with guilt, but for Job to be so bold as to tell God to give him a trial in front of his friends, well that is pretty confident. And during this time Job never sinned against God. So fascinating.
Then I came to another moral of this story. 4)Who in the world (literally) would come up with the conclusion that God was showing Satan a lesson by using Job, as an example, to show him that Job would never curse him, ever. Satan must have hated this creation (man) that God made and I'm sure Satan resented God for putting so much value on this creation who would disobey Him if he did not continue to protect and bless them. I'm sure Satan was calling God out on His mistake for creating these people (human). Who on earth would have guessed that? No one would have guessed that! No one would even think that God would be having a conversation with Satan let alone tell him he can have his way with Job. So what is the moral of this story? Well there are a lot but in my 4th case, God can and will do whatever He want to do and you can never figure out God and why somethings happen. Obvious right? But wait...
Things happen in the world today and humans say how can God do this or how can God allow this? Some will say there can't be a God because if there were a God then how could He allow this to happen? That's the thing, you don't know, you can never know. You have to do like Job and just trust in the Lord at all times not wavering your faith because something doesn't make sense to you. Don't assume you understand why something happened and don't try to get to God's level and say God did this because of this unless he told you Himself why. I hear people say Katrina happened because of their sin. The earthquake happened in Haiti because of their sin. That could be right but, unless God told you that, don't assume you know what God is doing and why and if you haven't gotten it by now then read Job or Luke 13:1-5. It is so easy for us to blame disasters on sin because it makes us feel better to know that justice happens to the just and injustice happens to the unjust (which is actually justice) but what we must realize is that grace and mercy happens to whom God choose and we must pray that we remain for the rest of our lives under God's grace and mercy. Look at Job, the covering that Job had was God's grace and mercy and God took the covering away from Job to allow Satan to have his way with Job but, Satan could not kill him. All are subject to God's command and will, ALL including Satan. This is why Paul would pray this prayer at the end of his letters, May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you or with your spirit. It's not just handed to us just because we became saved. We can't take God for granted, we must pray and thank Him every single day for His grace and His mercy.
God never gave Job the answer to what he was looking for. God reminded Job that he is no where near God's level or place. Do you question the creator? Than God changed it. By letting him know why you can never understand what I am doing and why I do it. In other words how about you answer Me human, how did I make the animals? What was I thinking when I did it? And so on which is putting humans in our place. God is saying, understand what I am (Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient) and understand your place in my life and in this life.
In the end, God punished the friends who spoke wrongly about God. In a 180 degree turn of events, it was Job that acted as a priest, on his friends behalf, so requested by God, and that he would only forgive the friends sins through Job (whom the friends had to bring their sacrifices to) so that God would not punish them by treating them as godless people. God also restored Job and blessed him with more then he had before for his faithfulness.
The moral? 5) God is God and stay faithful no matter what. We don't always know what God is doing, but we know what we must do. Never speak wrongly about God. Trust in the Lord at all times no matter what happens in your life whether you lose a family, friend, job, health, whatever the case maybe. Continue to do what is right at all times. And don't take His grace and mercy for granted. You must pray and asked daily for His mercy and grace for we do not know always what we do that could be displeasing to God. You never know when you are being tested. Can God say to Satan, have you considered my servant...That there is none like him/her in the earth, a perfect and an upright man/woman, one that fear God, and stay away from evil?
Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that [there is] none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
God Bless you.
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