Job Lessons

I have to say I never thought of this before, until last night as I prepared for children's church. I have read Job's story before, heard it many a times, but never really thought about it other than in the realm of trials.

Job is someone who had a strong foundation, but not very wise friends. Here is this guy who has everything, large family, successful business, and great riches. Yet, his greatest wealth came from his unshakable foundation in God.

Job was rooted in God. He knew regardless of what came his way, that God was the one thing that he had to hold on to. I mean this guy lost everything - save a complaining wife and four servants who brought him terrible news, and four foolish friends, in the course of just a few hours.

Yea, he mourned for them, for what he lost, but he held tight to God.

Then as if loosing everything wasn't enough, he lost his health. And yet, he stayed true to God - despite advise from his foolish friends and "lovely" wife.

It just goes to show how important it is for each of us, in the day that we are living, to stay grounded in God. Not just to go to church and listen to a preacher, but to truly seek God - reading His Word, praying, being in a daily, intimate fellowship with Him, lead by His Spirit. Because the trials will come, we will loose things and people that are important to us, we will be tested, but God will never leave us or forsake us. Frankly, we are as close to God as we want to be for His word say "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you."

The second thing that really stood out to me is how important our friends are. Job lost everything, and his friends are saying "Well, it is your fault." "You must have done something wrong." "Repent." Yet God was there talking to Satan saying "He is upright and faithful in all."   Perfect, but "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

It is important that we chose our friends wisely. They need to be people who will lift us up, not tear us down. We need people who will pray for us when we have a problem, not blame us and try to keep us in our fallen problematic state. I am not saying that we should turn our back on those people, but we need to make sure we are turning to God, and to the right type of people when we are hurting.

Yes, our actions and even motives need to be checked, but it needs to be from a Godly perspective, not a blame game free-for-all. We have to be willing to humble ourselves to the truth, and make the changes needed, but we also need to be encouraged so we can do those things.

So it is important to be grounded in Christ, with a foundation built upon the Rock, and have Godly friends that we can go to in times of need.