Job – helps us to stay positive
The book of Job is a great inspiration when life isn’t going too well! Here are some thoughts, which may help you, if times are a bit hard.
Job 1
We see Job as a righteous man … upright before God. He was very wealthy, Godly, and cared about the right things.
v.6: God has a conversation with Satan and is confident that Job is undergirded with the principles that make a Man of God … it’s not “stuff” or blessings alone. Satan is given leave to test him.
Total disaster befalls Job… he loses everything… all of his livelihood, his workers and his children, but he blesses the name of the Lord and doesn’t blame God.
Job 2
He loses his health … yet despite his wife’s encouragement to curse God and die, he refuses to blame Him.
So how did Job respond to these very negative situations?
1. He held to his integrity… he didn’t float about as he was well anchored in the things of God. When times are hard, we need to hold fast to God
2. He reached despair… “I wish I’d never been born!”, but he faced the reality and acknowledged the situation. He wasn’t in denial, he was honest, about his situation – hard, but necessary!
3. He confronted his fears! We do well to face our “Worst case scenario”. When we face the worst defeat the far of that, it no longer has a hold over us. See Job 2 v 5: He faced his worst scenario and allowed God to be in it… What can God do for me in this … He looked to his Maker!
4. He looked at God’s greatness and recognised the power, the mercy and grace of God even in this hardship. See Job 9 v 2.
5. He realised his humanity in the face of GOD… recognised his distance from God and that he needed a saviour.
6. He did not allow the “stuff” that was oppressing him to squash him or make him feel inferior, bitter or resentful. See Job 12.
7. He recognised that God is full of Wisdom, Counsel and Understanding and that in God, he had everything he needed! See Job 12 v 13
Then we see Elihu, a young man who rose up passionately and roused! N.B. Sometimes our “young men” have a passionate wisdom about them that we need to listen to!
8. God comes and simply asks, “Who are you and what can you do?” See Job 38 v 41
Job answers, v 3 – 6, I know you can do anything… and he responds by recognising that before he had just heard of God and His ways, but now, he had met Him!
Job’s breakthrough was when he surrendered to God. After that God was able to rebuild Job and his life. We need to daily surrender our lives to God and live out of His rebuilding work in our lives… quite a challenge “give up and let God!”
Whatever you’re facing, the most importand key to surrender it to the Lord. That’s the central message of the book of Job. Yet if you’re anything like me, it’s not the first thing you think of doing – panic; action; worry, etc. but how about crying out to God with the statement that “I’m lost without You”? He cares and be assured He has a plan to restore your life. In Job’s case, the letter part of his life was twice and successful as the first – once he totally surrendered the the Lord.