Day 10: Blameless but Not Untouchable
Read: Job 1:1-22; 2:1-10
I strongly dislike the cultural and social media trend we know as #blessed. If you’ve paid attention to it, these
scenarios will sound familiar:
- A picture is posted of someone with their new car; the caption reads, #blessed.
- A person gets a promotion and raise, #blessed.
- A dream vacation is realized, #blessed.
You know what you never see?
- I was diagnosed with cancer today, #blessed.
- I miscarried my baby today, #blessed.
- I lost my job and house, #blessed.
- My friend was persecuted for their faith, #blessed.
Here’s why it drives me crazy. The blessing of God is only associated when a person gets something they really want, they have material possessions, the perfect family, money and I could go on and on. But when something goes wrong, even disastrous, then God doesn’t bless me. Even worse, he hates me or has a vendetta. He’s not a good God. Somewhere along the line we’ve linked God’s blessing with only the good things in life—never the hard things—and certainly not the traumatic. I’ve traveled to enough third world countries and met enough believers in poverty to know this is completely untrue.
I further know this is untrue from our character study today. Enter Job.
“The man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.” Well, if ever there was someone who should have the blessing of God, it should be Job, right? Not exactly. In your reading you probably noted how wealthy he was, he was respected, he had a large family who he interceded for and he was living a life most of us would envy. He had it all.
Until the day God tested him. Satan was allowed to take anything and everything except Job’s life.
Whoa. Talk about a test. God saw Job in his righteousness but that did not mean he would be without sorrow, loss, disaster and heartache. Since we can read it in its entirety and ultimately know what happened, the purpose and the restoration, it would be easy for us to fail to see the true tragedy. Job didn’t have that luxury. He lost everything, except his wife. He didn’t know about the conversation in heaven. He didn’t know it was a test from God. All he knew is one day he had it all and within a short time period, he had nothing. Fathom that grief.
Because of what we do know about Job, his response isn’t all that hard to imagine. He got up, tore his robe, shaved his head…..then fell down in worship. He did not sin in his response. We read phrases like, “the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised,” and “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
If you look further into the book of Job (and I highly recommend it), you will read a long conversation between him and God. What you won’t read is a portion where God explains to Job why he did what he did. He doesn’t have to explain to his creation why he does what he does. This concept is further reinforced in Isaiah 29:16. But because God is loving and cared for Job, he consistently reaffirmed the point that it is better to know the God who has the answers than to know the answers themselves.
This is hard stuff. We can be doing exactly what God wants us to be doing and experience great hardship. We can be faithful, obedient and growing in our faith while the wheels come off the wagon. How do we reconcile that? Is it wrong to ask for answers? Clearly not because we see Job doing it and scripture is clear that he didn’t sin in his response. If there are no answers, though, that is the true test. Will we continue to believe? Will our faith increase? Or will we declare God incompetent and walk away? Those are the answers that matter. Those are the questions we all must answer for ourselves.
Prayer: Today speak a prayer from your heart. Ask the questions. Have a conversation with God. Give thanks for all the ways he has blessed you, even in the hard things.