TRUSTING GOD WHEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING

TRUSTING GOD WHEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING

We had planned many things for today, we had spent weeks praying and planning for this mission week. It looks like all these plans are in ruins. This is why, although I seldom have changed my sermon in the last minute, I felt that I needed to.  It was past 11 pm, but the Lord helped me and this is what He laid upon my heart.

Job 1&2

This passage has truths for us, because we know that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16-17)."

LOOK AT THE TRAGEDY THAT BEFELL JOB

He lost his livelihood, his seven sons and three daughters, his health, the respect of wife, and the comforts of life itself.

But why?

Job would have said, I have no idea. His wife is baffled. His friends were mistaken. In many ways, his circumstances do not make any sense.  To trust our God where we cannot trace Him is the lesson we learn from this account.

Did Job's heavenly Father love him? Yes He did, and He was proud of Him. Was His heavenly Father protecting him in the midst of all this. Yes. God told Satan that he could go so far and no further.

LOOK AT THE TALK THAT FRUSTRATED JOB

During our trials, we can get frustrated by the words of others. When Job needed loving comfort, he received the opposite.

The only family member who was left and who Job could talk to was his wife. But her eyes were not on the Lord at this awful time of trial, and she gave him terrible advice. "Curse God and die." She was in fact saying to him: See what God has done to you. After all your devotion, this is how He repays you. Curse God to His face and let Him strike you dead. We can see why she was down. She had lost all her children and all her comforts, but in that moment, she had forgotten  that all what she had had, her children, comforts,  fortune, husband, were all given to her by God. Job rightly chides her for being foolish. He is frustrated by what she says and also by what his friends say to him some days later. As for his friends, they were something else! They kept quiet for days and then began to speak. Considering what they spoke, they would have done better to leave without saying anything at all. For all they did was to berate him for his sinfulness. They thought they knew why Job had been afflicted and that it was because of his arrogance and sin.

All this teaches us that we must guard our tongue in moments of pain and difficulty. It is easy to sit in the sidelines and criticise. In this time when we as a nation are going through this crisis, we need to comfort each other, realizing that different people respond and react differently, and like the PM says, we must be kind.

And importantly, we must remember that we are asked to encourage each other IN THE LORD.

We have to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the Lord. It is there that we find answers and it is there that we find peace.

LOOK AT THE TRUTHS THAT COMFORTED AND SUSTAINED HIM

Job 1:20 reads: "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and WORSHIPPED." At the time when we most need Him, we often forsake God. But Job was different.

The devil complained that he could not get near Job, saying:  “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:10-11). But contrary to the devil's expectation, Job worshipped.

He was sustained by these truths:

Truth 1

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  (Job 1:21)

What a truth to hold on to through the storms of life! God's love  is the same in the storm as it is in the sunshine. We can say with the Psalmist:

"I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; / I will sing praises to you among the nations. / For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, / your faithfulness to the clouds. / Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! / Let your glory be over all the earth!" (Ps 57:9-11)

Truth 2

. . . "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10)

Should we only worship God when He gives us health and wealth? This truth, to trust God where we cannot trace Him,  will sustain us through life as it did Job.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Prov 3:5-6)

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Ps 23:4)

Trust the One who has kept you by His power. He will never leave you nor forsake you. People like Job, Daniel, Joseph,  and many others went through difficult days, but they fixed their eyes on the God who works all things for the good of His people.