At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” Job 1:20-22 (NIV)
It is probably very doubtful that many (if any) of us have suffered as Job did – a man, BTW, that God spoke of as blameless and upright. A man after God’s own heart. We are privy to the conversation between Satan and God in Job 1:6-8 (NIV): “One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the LORD, ‘From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.’ Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.’” What a commendation from the mouth of God!
Here we discover the accuser of our souls desirous of taking this righteous man down. And begins by taking all away from him except his life and his wife. In one fell swoop this man of God lost everything - including all of his ten children. His response was supernatural as we discover in our verses for today, yet worth repeating: “At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.’ In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” Job 1:20-22 (NIV).
God knew Job’s heart. He knew He could trust it. Job realized that all belongs to God and He can give and He can take away. Neither capriciously nor randomly, rather with pristine purpose and foreknowledge – never allowing anything that is not for His child’s ultimate good and His own glory- one never surpassing the other. Scripture asks us: Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor? We now see but a poor reflection as in a mirror but God sees face to face. We only know in part then we shall know fully even as we are fully known. If we are a child of the King, we can be confident that all things He allows in our lives will ultimately be for our good whether we can discern that or not, the fact is still true.
Our health is precarious and goods and riches fly away. We will perhaps all one day scratch our heads over the appointed suffering. If you are a child of the King, one thing is for certain - what is allowed will always, always be for our good. While we oftentimes cannot see this through blinding tears, pain and sorrow, it is most assuredly true. We do ourselves a great disservice if we cling too tightly to anything but Jesus. All is given for us to enjoy but not to live for. He is to be our all in all; our sufficiency and strength. The first commandment tells us in Exodus 20:1-3 (NIV): “And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.’”
Whatever we have to have - anything that perhaps we hold on to too tightly – can become a “god” to us. We must learn to loosen our grips on outcomes as well, seeking to put God in the proverbial box of our own choosing. We are to let God be God and allow Him to work out the outcomes of our hurts and hardships to glorify Him and to work in and through us what is good, pleasing and perfect. This side of heaven heartbreak abounds and we are not the Writer of our own stories. God uses all things allowed to make us more and more like the image of His Son Who was to be the firstborn among many brothers. Riches fly away. Health is not a given. There is no absolute certainty in this fallen and broken world but that God is good and that He is loving – we can trust Him with our live and with the lives of all we hold dear. As His children we are to desire to be in His good and pleasing and perfect will – even if extraordinarily painful. And as His children, we are to set our hearts and minds on things above. He cares for us. Also, if we are still living and breathing, it is not the end of our stories. He is the master of making beauty out of our of ashes, the oil of gladness out of our mourning and a garment of praise out of our spirits of despair.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:1-5 (NIV)