People often ask this question….it just seems that life isn’t fair!! We do the best we can and then things go wrong for us! The Bible tells us about a man like this, a good man who did the best he could and then he lost everything. It also gives us a picture of why this happened which will help us to see things differently when things go wrong or us too.
If we turn to the Bible and look at Job chapter one, verse one, we read….”there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, one who feared (respected and reverenced) God and who hated evil.”
So we see that Job always did his best and as we read down the chapter, we see the things that he did for himself and for his family. Let’s turn it into a story…… One day, God’s team of angels came to report to Him. God noticed a shiny, glistening, sneaky looking one among them who didn’t usually come, and recognised him instantly.
“Where have you come from, Satan?” He asked.
“I’ve been walking up and down all over the place,” Satan replied shiftily.
“Have you seen any person as good as My servant Job is?”, God asked, “No-one else is as good in the whole world as he is….he loves Me and hates everything evil! He makes me an offering every day, not only for himself but also for his family.”
“Ho”, sneered Satan looking at God, ” No wonder he is so good! You look after him on every side, and have given him all he’s got! I bet if you took it all away from him it’d be a different story! He would curse You to Your face if that happened!!”
God knew His man, and He knew He could trust Job to do the right thing.
“OK,” He said to Satan, “We’ll see. I’m allowing you to take away everything that he has. I know he will stand firm for Me.”
Satan chuckled gleefully. ” I’ll make him sorry for following God’s ways. I can beat him!”
So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
The next day, Job got up early as he usually did, and made the morning sacrifice for himself and his wife. Then he made another sacrifice to cover each of his children. As he did this, he prayed for each of them, as he did every day. “Lord”, he said, “Please help the boys to stand firm for you; help them to resist temptations, and always be helpful to their mother and sisters. I pray for the girls, Lord that they will not be vain with how they look, but that they will try their best to be beautiful with their minds and their speech.”
Job knew that his eldest son was putting on a party that day for his brothers and sisters, and he hoped that everything would go well for them all. While he was sitting there after breakfast thinking about them, he saw one of his servants rushing up the path. He could tell something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” he called out as the man got close enough to hear.
“We were out in the field ploughing with the bullocks and the donkeys were there beside them when a marauding tribe from over the hill came and rounded them up, killing all the herdsmen, and I’m the only one who got away!”
With that, he fell down on the ground panting with the run, and fright at what he had seen.
The man had hardly finished telling Job this when another servant came panting up. “Oh, oh!,” he said, “There was a massive lightning storm over the paddock where the sheep were, and they have all been struck dead as well as the other servants there. I’m the only one who managed to get away to tell you!”
A third servant came panting in from another direction and said, “The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yes, and killed the servants with swords; and I only am escaped alone to tell you.”
Job hardly had time to take all this in when another servant came rushing in from the direction of the oldest boy’s house.
“Oh no!” he wailed when he saw Job, “Your sons and your daughters were eating their meal and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house when there was a terrific gust of wind rushing in from the desert like a tornado, and the roof was lifted off and the whole thing collapsed on everyone else in the house, and they are all dead! I’m the only one to escape and tell you!”
Job had been sitting down all this time, and now he stood up and tore his long robe off his shoulders. He went inside and shaved the hair all off his head to show how upset he was.
His wife and servants wondered how he would cope with all this bad news and the disasters that had happened. But he didn’t curse or swear, or even complain. It didn’t even enter his head to ask God why this had all happened.
Instead, he got down on his knees and prayed in front of everyone left in his house, and said, ” I was born naked with nothing, and I will go back to God the same way, with nothing. The LORD gave me these things, and the LORD has taken them away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
The Bible tells us that in all these disasters Job didn’t sin or complain and blame God foolishly. I wonder how I would react in a situation like this! Job is a marvelous example to us all!