Been reading in Job. Not exactly my favorite book of the Bible. I love the story itself of being faithful through disaster and God restoring Job's life to be greater than before. It shows how amazing God is. But I don't particularly enjoy chapter after chapter of Job's friends and their bad attitudes. It just can seem a few chapters too long if you ask me. But in the past few days I've seen some things I haven't seen before.
1. God will put you in your place.
Job got a little full of himself at the end and started demanding God answer him. You know, like a rebellious kid who thinks they know more than their parents. I'm sure we've all had moments where we didn't exactly treat God like he knew what he was doing. I've tried to help God more times than I can count which from where I am sitting is a pride issue. When I can't trust God enough to stop myself from offering suggestions or doing things the way I know is best, I definitely need some humbling. And God knows just how to do that. I love chapters 38 through 41 where God basically asked Job who did he think he was. If we won't humble ourselves and come to God, realizing he is God and we are not and that we need him, he has his way of humbling us. Remember, the devil got thrown out of heaven because he thought he could do things better than God, so we need to be careful and not let pride keep us from what God has for us.
2. Job had to forgive his rude friends before God restored his life back to him.
I have never realized that God required Job's friends to ask for Job's forgiveness and him to pray for them before he restored everything back to Job. It is hard to forgive someone who has wronged us and I would definitely say Job's friends weren't exactly being nice to him. They were basically accusing him of sin he didn't commit and calling him a lier. I am sure he wasn't too happy with them and forgiving them didn't come easy. And in addition, before Job knew that God was going to provide for him in such a huge way (giving him back double of what was taken from him) Job was asked to pray for his enemies and for God to bless them. I have had to do that before and it is very hard. My tendency was to pray "God, get them good. Pay them back. Make their lives miserable." But that is not what God wanted me to do. Somehow, when we let ourselves sincerely pray for God to bless that person who gets under our skin or has hurt us, God heals us in the process. At least for me, I began to get a better understanding of who that person was and the struggles that they had gone through that has contributed to the pain they caused me. I am not excusing what they did, that is between them and God, but I could understand and have compassion for them and genuinely pray that God would bless them despite what they did to me. Often times God asks us to do things that aren't comfortable, knowing that he plans to bless us when we are obedient. He doesn't tell us his plans because he wants us to obey him, whether or not he blesses us in return. That's called faith. Obedience without getting anything in return.
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