Sometimes, life doesn’t seem fair…who am I kidding? Life usually doesn’t seem fair! However, one thing that I am learning as of late is that it’s not up to us to decide what is fair and what is not. We, in our very limited human perspective view the hardships, pain, and trials that we go through as being unfair, and rightly so. They hurt…they suck…and are not pleasant at all. But sometimes we just need to take a step back, take some time to think through and attempt to process the situation, and try (and the key word here is TRY) to view things from God’s perspective.
During my last few months as a youth pastor, I went through some very difficult things, some of which nobody knows about. During these months a majority of my teachings to my students were on the topic of trials. It was very real to me and what I was going through, and I felt there were lessons that I was learning that they needed to learn as well. The main thing that I tried to drive home to them was that sometimes, God uses our trials to teach us something. Obviously He doesn’t want to see us suffer, but He is infinite in His knowledge and all-knowing in everything ever. Because of that, He knows what is best for us and knows what it will take for us to learn the lesson that He desperately wants us to learn. The ironic thing is that most likely, He told us what we needed to learn over and over again but we were too distracted or too unfocused to hear His voice. Because of this fact, He has no choice but to allow us to go through a trial. It’s the only way to get our attention and for us to learn!
I’ve been reading a lot in the book of Job lately. Job was a man who had a reason to think that life wasn’t fair. He was a man that was “blameless and upright!” (Job 1:1, 8, 2:3) Everything he did in his life was for God’s glory and he never had anything to do with evil. So one would think that because Job so obediently followed and lived for God that He would have no problems and that God would bless Him. But that is not how life works. I find it very interesting that this whole “messing with Job’s life” thing wasn’t Satan’s idea, but God’s! Satan didn’t come to God and say “hey, can I try to turn your servant Job away from you?” In actuality, God said to Satan “have you considered my servant Job?” Satan saw that this man (Job) was completely and irrevocably in love with God and he hated that. He wanted to stop it and try to make Job stumble and curse God, and for whatever reason, God allowed Satan to try to do just that. It doesn’t make sense to us, but God saw the bigger picture (or the end result) and knew the plans that He had for Job (check out Jeremiah 29:11).
After Satan sabotages Job’s life twice (killing all of his sons, daughters, and livestock and afflicting him with sores and rashes) Job starts to wish that he was never born and complain. Then Job’s friends start to accuse him of all sorts of things (sinning, living wrong, etc). Isn’t it like this at times in our lives too? We are going through something that only us and God can understand and deal with yet our friends speak their mind and try to tell us what we need to do to fix our problems. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, they’re our friends, they love us, and they are only trying to help. But they have an outside perspective and they don’t truly know the heart of the matter. After Job’s friends gave him their two cents, we see that God spoke up.
It starts off by saying “Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm…” (Job 38:1). I find it amazing that there are so many different ways that God can speak to us, and sometimes, He chooses to do it through a storm (a very difficult time in our lives where we think the world is crashing down around us). What comes next is very convicting, for me anyway. In verse 2 of chapter 28, God asks Job “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” I find this convicting in that I often am like Job. When things get tough and the storms come, I start to question God and demand to know why things are happening. I argue and wrestle with God, which is ok to do, but this verse always puts me in check. Do I darken God’s counsel with words without knowledge? That’s a scary thing to think about!
Unfortunately, I have no clever concluding paragraph to sum this whole blog up. But what I do know is that I need to take a step back, take some time to think through and attempt to process the situation, and try (do you remember what I said the keyword here is?) to view things from God’s perspective. When I do that and leave things in God’s hands, I can’t fail!
– paulg
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