By Pastor Bob DeKlavon
I will confess that I have hesitated to make reference to Job during the time in which we live.
What we are going through does not remotely compare with what he endured.
I say if often that all of us ARE at least being inconvenienced right now.
Others, of course, are facing life and death issues due to the pandemic.
None of us is going through what Job went through.
But it is not how Job’s affliction came to him—it is Job’s response that I want to note.
Quick summary for those who may have forgotten:
Job loses his material possessions and all his children {10 of them} in one day.
Then—Job himself is afflicted with boils “from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”
He takes a potsherd to scrape himself while he is sitting among the ashes.
I cannot even begin to fathom the depths of despair for him.
It is at this time that we are introduced to: “Mrs. Job.”
Realize that she is going through this hardship along with her husband so her words should not surprise.
She says to him:
“Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”
If you were Job—what would you think had caused this?
Why do you think this happened to him of all people?
Well, that is the subject of the rest of the book as Job and his friends ‘spar’ over ‘why him?’
Wouldn’t YOU think you had been cursed by God?
Wouldn’t YOU think you or someone in your family had sinned greatly to bring the judgment of God?
What would have been your response?
I go through so little in comparison and yet I sometimes grumble and complain and wonder ‘how long?’
I cannot even imagine what I would have thought or said if I were Job.
But…here is what we do get as this ‘man without nothing’ responds to his wife:
“But he said to her: ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
I am always taken back by this comment and by Job’s integrity.
He WILL wrestle with God as you read through the book.
But he understood a fundamental concept--God does not always preserve His children from adversity.
Over the next few day, I want to talk about trials and their purpose.
As Christians, we DO encounter things that non-Christian do not.
But right now, everyone is going through this time of adversity in one way or another.
But the great difference is that we see a purpose behind what happens.
We DO see the good and the blessings and the mercy and the grace of God.
But we also understand that it is often in the trials that God is seen the most.