- Job gets all this bad news at once. In a way, I guess that’s easier. To get that news about your children after wearied with grieving the loss of everything else, would be harder. He might not have been in as good of a place to handle it.
- I can look back and see the Lord giving me this gift, letting me face some serious trials when I was ready to handle them and not when I was feeling beaten down by something else. I see His gracious hand in all that when I look back.
- I hope you can see the trail of goodness and mercy when you look back, the goodness and mercy that’s been following you. If not, pray. Ask God to show you. It’s a beautiful picture.
- Job does show grief. That’s the tearing of the robe and the shaving of the head. Those are acts of mourning.
- But after he does those things, he worships. He bows before his God. It’s an act of humility, which is the correct response to suffering.
- We tend to get riled up against suffering. “This shouldn’t be happening!” And we do everything we can think of to alleviate our suffering, fighting against God’s kind intentions in it!
- The proper response is found in 1 Peter 5:6. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”
- That was the posture of Jesus in the garden. He did not want to suffer. He had the means of escaping the suffering. He chose to humble Himself and submit to God’s will in it. And God exalted Him to His right hand and gave Him the name above every other name.
- Think of a problem or problems you are facing now. Have you submitted yourself to His will in it or are you fighting it? Have you humbled yourself before Him and thanked Him for being in control and working out His good purposes in your life? Have you settled that you will wait with joy (ref. Col. 1:11) until He restores, redeems, and exalts?
