Thought for Wednesday, 7 September

Job 1: 1-3

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

Dr. Fred W. Penney tells a story about a man he called TobyMac

TobyMac wrote these words upon the tragic death of his 21-year-old son, “My wife and I would want the world to know this … We don’t follow God because we have some sort of under the table deal with Him, like we’ll follow you if you bless us. We follow God because we love Him.”

I don’t know if you have heard this story before, I hadn’t, but it struck a chord with me. God comforts and strengthens us in sorrowful times and He rejoices with us in happy times.

If we don’t love God why follow Him? We won’t be given special treatment. Everyone has to take good times with bad ones, no matter whether we ‘follow’ God or not. Loving God is no guarantee of a life without pain, without pain we wouldn’t know what joy was.

Job found this out to his cost. We see from the first few verses of the book of Job that he was a very wealthy man with a large family. He was also a very devout man who worshipped God above all things but this didn’t help when God gave Satan permission to test Job and Job lost everything. Satan had said that Job wouldn’t be so devout if God was not so generous to him but God knew Job and so He allowed Satan to put Job’s love to the test, (read the rest for yourselves).

Following God means accepting all He puts into our lives, whether that be joy or heartache. Illness or wellbeing, wealth or poverty. Everything we experience daily has a reason behind it. Following God means trusting Him to know what is best for us. There is a lesson to be learned from every situation we face. We need to learn to trust and not question God’s decisions.

God made us and, as it says in Psalm 139: 13, God created our inmost being so it is reasonable to believe He knows what is good for us.

Even before we loved God we were loved by Him. So much so that He allowed His Son to be born in a stable and grow into a man, knowing His life would meet a cruel death on a cross. All in order that our sins would be paid for and we could be forgiven.

 

Prayer

Almighty God and Heavenly Father You know each of our individual needs, even before we know ourselves, You have plans in place to meet those needs. When these needs are not met as we think they should be, help us to trust that You are in control at all times. What we see as a need You may see as a millstone around our necks which we don’t need. Help us to build our trust and faith where these are lacking so that we can leave our needs entirely in Your hands. We thank You for Your care at all times. Amen