Job 1:20-21

New International Version (NIV)

 “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”

For Meditation

The second and third years of my current fourteen-year pastorate in Dakar, Senegal were the most difficult times of my entire life. For a period of four months, a band of five young men constantly stood up to violently disrupt our Sunday worship services. Incited by an elder of the church, they sought my dismissal, and would go to any extent to do that. Each Sunday morning was a nightmare getting out of my house, not knowing what to expect in church, and which police station I was going to be summoned to during the week.

But, as I remember those days, I wonder how Job coped with the four reports he received about the calamities that came upon him in that short space of time (Job 1:13- 19). How could the man respond with such calmness after the worst of all the reports, the death of all his children in the collapsed building of his oldest son?

 “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised” (20-21).

1. Do you know that in life, nothing could be changed that has already happened?
2. Do you know that whatever happens after a terrible event is only a reaction that could either soothe things or exacerbate them?
3. What could Job do otherwise? What could he say to change anything, but praise the Lord and give it all to Him?
4. Do you remember what David said when his son with Bathsheba died after days of fasting and pleading for God’s mercy? “Now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again?” (2 Sam. 12:23).
5. Do you know that David and Job were able to respond with the right attitude of worship developed from years of consistent, steady, and intimate walk with God? Do you know you could also respond that way if you learn to trust Jesus when some terrible news arrives at your door?

I don’t know what you are going through, and how often the evil messenger has made his rounds to your home lately, but know that Jesus can sustain you, if only you would learn to trust His judgment in these things. It took Job a long and torturous period of bodily affliction to realize God’s purpose in all his troubles. In the end, he was strengthened by them and grew closer to God.

So: May your convictions about God develop for you an attitude that overcomes adversity; and may God turn your wailing into dancing very quickly as you lift your eyes to Him who suffered it all and prevailed – Jesus Christ our Lord (Ps. 30:8-11).

Shalom