- Had everything in life – wife, a lot of children, riches, servants, land/ property, power, God
- Had every reason to be content and believe in his own ability and power
- One of the most powerful men in his time
- A great relationship with God – remembering his place, humble in heart
His greatest moment: When God took it all away
I can never fathom how Job had the ability and attitude to say: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
It breaks my heart how Job had the humility, attitude, faith and trust in the Lord in order for him to say that through all of the loss. And it wasn’t just any loss – It was a GREAT LOSS! In fact, there came a point in his suffering that he wanted to die already than to remain alive and suffer. And to top it all off, everything that happened seemed to be without reason! WHY OH WHY GOD???
Put yourself in Job’s shoes.
God gives and God takes away. When God will take away from me in my life, I pray that I will have Job’s attitude. I’m deciding on that now and will keep deciding on that everyday so that when the day comes that something precious is taken away from me, I will be able to say: “God has given and God has taken away. Praise be to His name.”
How about you? Have you ever thought about Job’s case? REAL TROUBLES can SHATTER and SHAKE you. Unless you have Job’s trust in God and his humility in knowing his own place, you are in risk of putting the blame on God and asking “Why?” instead of responding like Job.
nice Patrick! 😀 nice blog. keep it up
Thanks Lourdy! I appreciate your encouragement =) call me Sean.
Actually, I'd say Job's greatest moment was when he got double back of everything he lost.
Poor Job…Satan hadn't even noticed him until God pointed him out, boasted about him and gave Satan the permission to crush him. Hope that God doesn't think you're one of his favorites, or you'll suffer too…Like all of God's favorites in the Bible – Jesus (tortured and crucified), Stephen (stoned to death), Paul (whipped and beaten, chased out of cities etc.) Peter (crucified upside down).
Mhmm I see where you're coming from =)
Jesus said in His word that we are not of this world, this world will hate us because we follow God. And this is true before our eyes even today. Christians are persecuted everywhere – in school, at work, in different countries – and we read about it in the Bible too.
And we admire these men for being bigger than life in dying for what they believe in. Sometimes we realize that we were created for something more than this life. We believe it, and we would go so far as to die for it.
It is when we realize that we were created for eternity that we see our lives here as worthless compared to God's plan for us. And then we surrender to Him. And because of that, the world will be against us because it's current ruler is Satan who is against God in every way.
Currently preparing a study on Job. Interested to read your slant but can’t see a biblical basis for your comments?
God didn’t “give and take away” – Satan took away – God our perfect father gives only every good and perfect gift. These may have been words from Job – but as God rebuked Job we have to be careful about taking Job’s words and making them into a gospel song!!
Job was not congratulated by God or Elihu (God’s messenger – and the only one not told off by God!)
Job was rebuked. Therefore we cannot hold him up as a shining example of faith in adversity – in fact he got it terribly wrong and ended up asserting his righteousness above God’s righteousness.
Have you never wondered why Job’s faith wasn’t rated enough to get him into Hebrews 11- from reading Job it becomes obviously that it was because he had self-righteousness not the Godly (and God given as a result of faith) righteousness of Abraham, Moses etc.
The only virtue of Job that we are instructed to learn from as we are told in the NT is his patience – or to be more precise his steadfastness. He was steadfast (although wrong in his assertions) – we are called to be steadfast (and right in our assertions!!)
To draw any other lessons from Job that are not elsewhere praised in God’s Word is not helpful and can lead people away from the true nature of God.
Interesting thoughts. I could see that you are leaning towards a more legalistic bone in things. Would love to read about your study on Job.
Oh hope I’m not being legalistic – that was far from my intention (quite the opposite in fact!) Intrigued as to what comes across legalistically?
Bible Studies on Job (chapter by chapter!!) will be up on our website when my husband has finished his preparation for the site.
That’s cool! Looking forward to your further insights in the book of Job. Do give me a link and a nudge when it’s up and running 🙂
Thanks Beverly!