When Job suffered intensely, he experienced times when he questioned WHY he had to suffer. Sometimes we do not want to suffer, because we cannot bear the pain, be it physically, emotionally, or mentally, but God knows what we can endure, and He is ALWAYS there to carry our burdens. The sufferings Job had to go through, seemed cruel and unkind, but he finally realised that they had come to him from the hand of a gracious God and that his sorrows and anguish eventually turned out to be for his own good and for God’s glory.
There are other Biblical heroes of the faith in the Bible, like Daniel and his three friends, and Joseph, who also underwent sufferings that were divinely intended to produce God’s blessings and triumph.
Job said in Job 19:25-27, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” He could also utter in Job 23:10 -> “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”
Job had to have a clear revelation of God and His mercy. He grasped the fact that he essentially had to repent of some of his attitudes to find the peace he so desperately needed. What did Job have to repent of? In his sermon, “Job Among the Ashes”, Charles Spurgeon suggested several things: Job repented of the terrible curse he had pronounced upon the day of his birth. He repented of his desire to die. He repented of his complaining. He also repented of his despair.
Once he repented, Job’s faith was proven, and the LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. The Lord truly gave Job twice as much as he had before. [Job. 42:10]
Charles Spurgeon wrote -> “We are not all like Job, but we all have Job’s God. Though we have neither risen to Job’s wealth, nor will, probably, ever sink to Job’s poverty, yet there is the same God above us if we be high, and the same God with His everlasting arms beneath us if we be brought low; and what the Lord did for Job He will do for us, not precisely in the same form, but in the same spirit, and with like design.”
Heavenly Father, please forgive me when I doubt that You are with me during the storms of life, when the winds beat upon me on all sides. Help me to realize that NO matter what happens to me, when I cling to You and trust fully in You, that You are with me, and that I can also “come forth as gold.” You are a God of love and compassion, a God who watches over my ALL my comings and goings. [Psalm 121] I love You! Amen
Myrtle Turunen