“In all this
Job did not sin
or charge God with wrong.”
What was Job’s secret to remaining humble, grateful after all his work, possessions, grown children, even his own skin was utterly destroyed, ruined, ripped from his arms?
I don’t remember any preacher treading far on Job’s encounter with Satan and God. (Though I’ve heard a handful teach on the radio.) I suppose none of us is easy with the fact that everything we have and all that we are is from God and belongs to God.
But if we stop and look long on this reality—it’s quite comforting.
Typically when things go wrong we scramble to figure out what we’ve done to deserve it, or how this trouble might have been avoided. When my teenagers started their shenanigans, I got mad at them. Though I didn’t say it outloud, I said it to my heart—How could you do this to me? Their poor choices were a threat to my imagined reputation. I thought I owned, could control, my world.
You can see what a trap this is. Because it doesn’t stop there. Suddenly all things begin and end at our feet. Inflation, violence, injustice all becomes our problem.
When we fall into the arms of the one good God—the One who made heaven and earth and all that is in it, the One who loved us from the garden to the grave, who took all responsibility upon His own shoulders—we abide in truth and grace. We can rest in the favor of our Savior. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.”
We own nothing, except the thanks and praise that comes from the breath and mouth He gave. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
My church 