Jeremy Camp - Walk by Faith (acoustic)
MONDAY MORNING DEVOTIONAL BY PASTOR KEN NABI
Accepting Trouble
Job 2:10
“…shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
Job is one of the most famous and well known characters in all of the Bible. Many people identify with Job as a man of suffering and struggles. Broken people look for people to identify with because it is comforting and Job is a person who anyone in pain can identify with. His life fell apart in every practical way—except one.
Job went through two testing periods. First, Job lost his assets in a stock market crash. He was invaded by neighboring clans and robbed of his cherished possessions. This horrible day ended with Job losing his children to a cataclysmic “natural” event. In the second test, the calamities hit his person and he was covered with some skin infection that sounds horrid. Life as Job knew it was completely decimated.
Many people can identify with this kind of struggle. But, what makes Job remarkable is not his pain, but his faith. This phrase in chapter 2 is a statement he makes to his own wife who tells him to give up on God because, she assumes, apparently God has given up on him. And Job demonstrates a maturity that few have. This maturity reflects his personal theology of difficulty. This personal philosophy rivets the reader into a world view that is solid and deep. “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” Do you accept trouble from God?
2 observations to guide us toward a mature embrace of difficulty.
Job is riveted theologically and his conviction about God guides him through the pain. Job is firmly standing on the theological premise that God is sovereign over all affairs and He is loving in it all. This theology is voiced in the popular phrase “there are no coincidences.” Job is not embracing a fatalistic mindset like I hear many people voice when they say “it’ll all work out.”
God is sovereign and by that we mean that He is weaving a reality into our midst that is just as He intends (Daniel 4:25). He is not surprised by cancer reports from doctors nor planes flying into buildings. He is not caught off guard by miscarriages nor stock market crashes. He is sovereign and as such is both causing and allowing events to shape life and reality. This is true even when Satan is behind the horror as is the case with Job. Yet, Job clings to God. He accepts the crushing problems as a gift from God. And this leads to the second observation.
Difficulty is an opportunity not to be missed only by suffering. If you read large portions of Job’s words, you see that his prayers are not polite and neat conversations with God. Job wrestles and winces. He pushes and provokes. Job takes his pain to God and will not leave the door unopened without some response (which incidentally he gets in chapter 38-40). Job sees the pain as an opportunity for self change and transformation. Pain has its greatest effect when we embrace it and learn from it (Hebrews 12:7-13).
In counseling, I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours trying to get people to see pain as something to be embraced rather than avoided, anesthetized, and ignored. Pain is our friend. It is a strangely wrapped gift. Pain is a school master who can make us smarter, wiser, more tender, and more loving when we embrace it with the faith of Job.
What trouble are you in? What pain are you struggling with? Can you identify with the suffering of Job? Can you embrace the faith of Job? Find your strength in the sovereign love of God and the great purposes of pain. They are a hammer and chisel that can shape in you a godliness that is a rare reality today.
Prayer: God, I trust you in the midst of this struggle. I know that you have allowed it into my life and I embrace it as a gift from you to shape my heart and life. Please have your way in my inner being today and use my pain as the tool of change.
Your Partner in the Gospel – Ken Nabi
Church website www.ccfdl.org
