Loving Our God or Loving Our Blessings

Have you ever commended someone for having “the patience of Job”? It’s curious how that expression developed when the story is not at all about Job being patient. Rather, it’s through his suffering and consequent impatient questioning of God and his friends that Job’s relationship with God deepens. He discovers that his creator is not only much more majestic and powerful than he had ever imagined, but is also a personal God who sees him, listens to him and speaks with him.

The first scene in this drama is a conversation in heaven which provides for us—although not for Job—an understanding of why he suffers.

God declares that Job is a man of faith and integrity. The Hebrew words for upright and blameless do not suggest he was sinless, but rather a man of good character, with a pure heart. Satan then taunts God’s confidence in Job, claiming, “He is only an upright man because you have given him great wealth. Take it all away and he will curse you to your face.”

Satan’s accusation might be right about many others, then and now. But he was wrong about Job. Job grieves deeply when his family and his possessions are all gone, but remains steadfast in his praise of God, who is the source of everything he has.

Would we? How easy it is for us to praise God in the midst of a comfortable life, but when circumstances change, does our praise turn to complaint? What happens to our reverence for God when those “good things” evaporate?

Do we love God or only what God gives us?

The story of Job challenges us to ponder that question. Sometimes we need to be in a desperate place to discover how important our relationship with God really is.

Respond in Prayer

Lord God, you are the source of everything, including life itself. Help me to look beyond the trappings of this life, however good or difficult they may be, and see you, love you, worship you, honour and praise you. May even the unwelcome circumstances of each day draw me closer to you. Amen.

Lynn Smith