Allowing Adversity to Change Your PerspectiveSample

Job’s Choices

No matter how bad things got for Job, there was one thing Satan couldn’t take away: Job’s choices. No matter how bad it got, Job kept his resolve. Even when his health and circumstances declined, Job still exercised his ability to choose.

Satan bet that if circumstances got bad enough, Job would make radically different choices, mirroring and exacerbating his circumstances, or Job would forget he had the ability to choose and would simply flow with the tide of tragedy.

Satan wanted Job to become a victim. Job’s friends tried to lead him to the same conclusion. Worldly wisdom could also have lead Job to conclude he was a victim. But Job resisted. Despite his friends’ pressure, Job kept choosing to have faith in God. He decided to trust his Creator. His circumstances didn’t determine his decisions, and, importantly, neither did his decisions determine his circumstances. In fact, Job’s choices transcended his circumstances. The power of obedience to God is bigger than the events (the arenas in which we decide), and it doesn’t play by their rules.

We each have the same opportunity as Job. We cannot control circumstances with our decisions, but we can choose our perspective before them. Will you choose to stand in a place of trust or in one of victimization?

Each new day is about the choices we make in life. Each day brings its worries and battles, its difficult circumstances, times when we’ll need to make new decisions. Nothing is more important in our lives than the choices before us. What we decide and do has consequences, not only in this life but also in the life to come.

Our ability to make choices is a gift. There’s only one way to lose our choices: if we forfeit them, if we decide that our circumstances can victimize us and there is no hope. But that is not what Job did.

Today is a new opportunity to follow Job’s example. Let us trust that our Creator has our best interest at heart, no matter how difficult life gets (1 Peter 5:6–7).

Lord, remind me that You have my best interest at heart. You care about me. Do not let me be deceived by Satan’s lies, no matter how crazy my situation may be.