You Never Know

  "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."

Edmund Burke, 1729-1797

The first baby fawn I've seen this year.

 

I've been studying the book of Job for the past two months. I've turned to it many, many times in the course of my Christian walk, mostly to the end of the book when God speaks. I love reading about all He has created as He drills Job in chapters 38-41.

 

God spoke to Job asking him where he was when God made the earth: "On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone--while the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy?" God asked: "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail . . ." and "Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?" "Everything under heaven belongs to me."

 

It's an interesting section of Scripture I read again and again!

 

I'm using an old, old, Sunday School quarterly from 1995. I was working at my home church at that time. On the front of the quarterly I wrote in big letters "THIS IS EXCELLENT ON JOB" and I never threw the quarterly away.

 

This time I read something that caused me to pause. It isn't what we normally hear when Job is preached. But it brings home a point that God uses often. God uses all people to complete His will. They may be good people. They may be bad people. In His perfect wisdom He arranges all circumstances to complete His will. These are the read I read:

 

"Ironically, even though Job's three friends were dead wrong, and their intent was to drive him to his knees in submission to their religious preconceptions, they were indirectly doing Job a great service.

 

"Credit them with: being with him; the comforting ministry of those first seven days of silence; not walking away when he started spewing out his bitterness; and giving him a sounding board with faces against which to bounce his conflicting thoughts and feelings.

 

"They miserably failed to feel with him, support him, or directly contribute to his understanding of what God was doing in his life. Their motives were mixed. Their theology was incomplete and inadequate. Their methods were wrong, they intensified his pain. But in spite of their misguided efforts, the fact that they were there arguing with him encouraged him to work through his feelings and grow in his perspective on the truth. A lesser man might have caved in to their pressures and missed finding out what God was doing. But, for Job, it was the fulfillment of Romans 8:28."  Adults Teaching Guide, June/August 1995, Scripture Press

 

 

Most of us our familiar with Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." It's a well taught verse of scripture.

 

For all the wrong Job's three friends laid on him, in the end they helped him work through his problems. It's hard to thank someone(s) when they seem to beat you up in the process. 

 

Sometimes someone's suggestion may leave you in a bigger mess, so you need to use the wisdom God endowed you with to work through suggestions. 

 

No matter the circumstances, the person, the place, God uses all things to perform His will. We can be thankful that His guidance is always with us, helping us to do the right thing. 

 

So, if your mother or father, or sister or brother, or friend or enemy, or teacher or boss upset you because of something they said, it just may be God giving you an opportunity to learn, rethink, grow. You just never know.