The Lord Has Taken Away

Easily, Job is my favorite book of the bible. There are so many life lessons in it. Every time I reread it, I find something new. Today is no different.

When I think of Job, I always add the silent tag line, “Worst day ever!” I’m not sure it’s possible for anyone to truly have a worse day than Job. I’m not trying to get in a bad news comparison battle, but when I think of my problems next to his…I should probably pipe down a bit. He had not just 1 of his servants to show up with horrific, life altering news, but 4! And the bible says “while he was still speaking” several times. While the first servant was telling Job the awful thing that just happened, another person showed up. It was like a deli waiting line of bad news! “Calling number 3! Number 3. It’s your turn!”.

Yet despite all the angles you can take talking about this story, I want to focus on the very beginning. I want to focus primarily on what happened right after all the news was given. Job 1:21 says, 'He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord !”'

Job has again, probably just had the worst day anyone has ever had. Many people misquote, love to quote, or focus on the first part of this verse. They emphasize that it seems Job said the Lord did this to him. However what I see is, a man that doesn’t quite understand what’s just happened to him. He is grief stricken, heart broken, confused, and possibly angry. Before he spoke those words in verse 21, verse 20 says he tore his clothes and shaved his head in grief. There is a lapse in time to consider getting from those two verses. Despite this, he does not raise a fist in the air. He does not curse God like satan said he would. (verse 11) He instead comes to the most spirit led or "spiritually" logical solution he could in this illogical situation.

It defies logic to think what just happened to Job was possible. It defies logic to think things like that just happen on the regular. Maybe someone steals a little from you. Maybe one of your children unfortunately pass. But it is not fathomable that you would lose all your wealth and children in one day through 4 sequential events. This was an illogical situation. Ultimately Job didn’t place blame, but responsibility, on the only One He knew powerful enough to have done this.

There is a BIG difference between blame and responsibility. Blame is defined as being responsible for a fault or a wrong. Responsibility is reliability and trustworthiness. Essentially Job had the capacity within his grief to realize God did not wrong me because He is never wrong. God is still reliable and trustworthy. This is backed up by the last part of this verse when Job said “Praise the name of the Lord !” You don’t praise who you blame, but you praise who you trust!

Job in no way had an explanation for the why. He most likely, couldn’t fathom how this could turn around for the good. He may not even felt restoration was even possible. What Job did know is that despite my pain, God is still to be praised! When things happen in our lives that we don’t understand it is never the time to run away from God. It is never the time to throw angry fists towards heaven. It is however the time to say “I don’t understand this, but I trust you.”

This morning I reflected on it being almost 18 months that we’ve been without certain things. Little insignificant things, as well as, things that would make a huge impact if we had them again. We are grateful to have a two bedroom apartment after our time of living in a cramped one bedroom followed by homelessness but , 90% of our things are still in storage. The reason is snowball of multiple reasons. I’d be lying if I said this isn’t painful. There are times I feel like I’ll never see my things again. There are times I try to remember but can’t remember, what exactly we have. There have been some meaningful people who have offered to give us things, not knowing the whole situation. I am grateful. However again I’d be lying, if I said that didn’t hurt either. It’s like someone offering you a blanket. You need one and you’re grateful for that. Yet you know you own a blanket near and dear to you, symbolizing lots of memories, and just can’t get to it. So you grieve a little. The storage units are not full of simply things. It's full of memories we built. I have thought about letting it all go. Maybe we’re not meant to have it. But when I come to myself, I realize it is all apart of a bigger plan God has for me. God will provide a house one day to place all those things in and He will get the glory. I can hold on a little longer. I don’t attribute blame to God that He took my things. I am saying that I trust He knows better than me and will work all of this out. One thing we need to grasp as believers is you don’t have to have all the answers to believe.

In our social media world, people often believe, based on the title of the article without reading the article and checking out the source. I’ve checked out the Source enough to know that He can always be believed, trusted, and will never steer me wrong. I also know He’s already told me His ways aren’t my ways and His thoughts aren’t mine. They are higher. (Isaiah 55:8-9) Mine are finite and His are infinite. So why would I try to logically figure everything out before I’d trust Him? Which brings us back to Job.

Job trusted that God could be trusted because God had never proven Himself untrustworthy. That was using his spiritual logic. I think when we try to assign untrustworthiness to God it is because again, He defies our logic. We want to know the beginning, middle, and end and God ‘don’t work like that’. He doesn’t work like we want because He doesn’t work for us. God is not our employee. He is our employer. We didn’t create Him. He created us. When we can finally wrap ourselves around this concept, life becomes a bit simpler. It’s not what You can do for me, but how can I worship You, even in times I don’t understand You. Job did this by saying “Praise the name of the Lord !”