Read Job 2:11–13
JOB
Since our lives are full of trials, we need to remember there are always more to come. Job admits, "For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7). He is absolutely correct. Trials are inevitable, so don't be surprised. Be aware that our Adversary, Satan, is on the loose.
Since our world is fallen, we need to understand that those who love us may give us wrong advice. During the many years of my life, I have received wrong advice on several occasions from people who truly love me. They were sincere, but wrong. They didn't mean to be wrong, but they were.
Since our God is sovereign, we must prepare ourselves for both blessing and adversity. Because He is God, He's unpredictable. My advice here? Don't be disillusioned. Because our God is sovereign, we must prepare ourselves for blessing and adversity.
Our God has no obligation to explain Himself. He doesn't have to step into a hospital room and say, "Now let me offer five reasons this has happened to your son." Understand, God is full of compassion, but His long-term, divine plan is beyond our short-term, human comprehension.
So we say, with Job: "O God, I trust You. I don't know why I'm going through this. If there's something I can learn, wonderful. If there's something someone else can learn, great. Just get me through it. Just hold me close. Sustain me. Deepen me. Change me."
"It is easier to lower your view of God than to raise your faith to such a height," writes a perceptive author. He then adds, "We shall watch the struggle as Job's faith is strained every way by temptations to see the cause of his misfortune in something less than God." God is totally, completely, and absolutely in charge. Please accept and submit to that teaching. How magnificent it is to find those who trust Him to the very end of this vale of suffering saying, "And may His name be praised. I don't understand it. Can't explain it. Nevertheless, may His name be praised." That is worship at its highest level.
May God enable you to raise your faith to such heights rather than lower your view of Him.
Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Great Days with the Great Lives (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
