JOB UNDERSTOOD WOUNDS. The words he used to describe them were more than patronizing platitudes and theoretical proverbs. He’d been there and back again. He could write about intense inner suffering in the first person because of his own massive ocean of pain.
No one would deny that the man called Job was “the greatest of all the men of the east” (Job 1:3, KJV). He had earned that title through years of hard work and honest dealings with others. His very name was a synonym for integrity and godliness. Therefore, nobody begrudged his wealth.
Then, without announcement, adversity thundered upon him like an avalanche of great, jagged rocks. He lost his livestock, crops, land, servants, and—can you believe it?—all ten of his adult children. Soon thereafter he lost his health, his last human hope of earning a living. Please right now stop reading, close your eyes for sixty seconds, and put yourself in the skin of that good man—crushed beneath the weight of all that adversity.
The Old Testament book that bears his name records an entry he made into his journal soon after the rocks stopped falling and the dust finally settled. With a quivering hand, the utterly broken man from Uz wrote:
“The LORD gave me what I had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!”
Following that immortal statement comes this amazing analysis:
In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.
How could anyone handle such a series of grief-laden ordeals without blaming God? Think of the aftermath: bankruptcy, pain, ten fresh graves . . . the loneliness of those empty rooms. Yet we read that he worshiped God, he did not sin, nor did he blame God as the cause of his catastrophe.
Now, why? Why didn’t he? At the risk of oversimplifying the situation, I suggest three reasons: Job claimed God’s loving sovereignty; he counted on the promise of resurrection; and he acknowledged his limited understanding.
Read that again.
Under an avalanche of hard situations? These three reasons are there for you. Hang on tight. Trust Him. He’s there for you, too.
Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord . . . Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved. The full devotional can be purchased at tyndale.com.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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