Recently, I was listening to a song by Bri aka Briana Babineaux called "Love You Forever" and as I was singing and worshipping I was allowing the words to just really sit on my tongue. The chorus to this song says "I will love You forever, in the good and bad times, I will love You forever, even if it never gets better, I will love You forever." Now of course the first thing that came to mind was, would I actually love God FOREVER even if that means my life will NEVER get better???????
My flesh immediately doubted my love for Christ, because I thought how can I love someone who isn't going to EVER better my situation? So guess what the Holy Spirit convicted me into reading? You guessed it, Job.
So for those of you who don't know who Job is let me summarize the story for you. Job was basically one of the richest men of his time, he owned thousands of animals (sheep, goats, camels, etc.), he had a large family, many servants, and most important of all he loved God with every inch of his body. The sneaky devil wasn’t happy with this so of course, he went to God and told him that he knew that Job wouldn't love God as much as he did, if what he had was taken from him (yoooo the devil is a lie man). Anyway, God accepted the FIRST challenge and allowed satan to take Job’s wealth and children. After hearing that he had lost everything listen to what Job says:
“He said, ‘I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!’” Job 1:21 NLT
Come on Job, are you really telling me that you just lost EVERYTHING and instead of cursing the Lord you’re praising Him? This can’t be real.
The SECOND challenge came right after, satan couldn’t be happy with Job’s praise, and so of course he told God take his health and I bet he’ll curse you then. God accepted the SECOND challenge allowing satan to do anything but take Job’s life. This is where it gets interesting, because Job literally went from having EVERYTHING to having NOTHING. He wasn’t even healthy enough to enjoy nothingness. On top of the pain from the loss of his wealth and children he had boils all over his body. Could you imagine the pain he was in, internally and externally? Even Job’s wife thought he was a fool, but Job responded with this:
“‘You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?’” Job 2:10 NLT
Job finally sounds defeated, but even in that state of mind he NEVER curses God. Instead Job curses the day he was born, because in his mind he’d rather he was never born than fathom the thought of being forsaken by God. Then here come his so called “friends” and tell him, dude why are you complaining? It’s your fault this is happening just repent of whatever sin you’ve caused and everything will be good again, he’s looking at them like I haven’t done anything what are you talking about!? This part sticks out to me because I believe we’re all so quick to judge people and always think we have all of the answers when the truth of the matter is we don’t know squat about what’s really going on in that person’s life.
What we must realize is that we may never have complete answers for whats going on in our lives because we never really know what God has planned. See our issues are that we have MAN size faith and a MAN size mentality therefore when we play out scenarios and possible outcomes in our minds they either don't make sense or they’re smaller than what God has planned for you.
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who keeps the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb, and as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick darkness? . . .” Job 38:4-9 NLT
See what I mean, God at this point challenged Job and said, yo who created this entire world? Have you ever looked at the entire world in straight up AWE, the Lord created EVERYTHING on this thing called earth, could you have ever thought to create something so marvelous? No. Why? because we’re only human. God is justice, he is grace, love, mercy, he is everything we could never be, because of this we have to understand that whatever happens in life, good or bad, is fair even if we don’t understand the reasoning behind it. Our response should be simply to appeal to God.
In the final chapter of Job, God restores him, but before that Job had to humble himself unto the Lord. The Lord challenged him in every way and still Job remained faithful; because of it the Lord blessed Job with even more than he had before including 7 more children and 140 years of life, enough to see four generations of his children and grandchildren. Job was a true testament of what FAITH is. Like if there’s a bible dictionary and you look up faith, the definition should be Job.
So back to the song, will you, like Job, love God forever, even in the good and the bad? Really sit on that thought. Remain faithful through whatever season you’re going through and know that God has something so much bigger and better for you. If that means he has to remove people and things from your life, then let it be. God loves you so much, He sent His son to die for you. His Son loves you so much, He came in human form KNOWING He was going to die, only so that we could live.
“Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.” Psalm 55:22 NLT
“We may through the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.” Proverbs 16:33 NLT
Takeaways:
- Job is the true definition of FAITH
- satan had to seek permission from God to inflict pain on Job
- Suffering isn’t always a direct result of personal sin.
- Friends may give you advice, take it with a grain of salt and bring the advice and your worries before the Lord. He should be your only true counsel.
- Stay read up and prayed up.
Love you all!
xoxo
Mel
