Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
Our Bible verse for today: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the name of Yahweh.’ Throughout all this, Job did not sin or blame God for anything.” Job 1:21-22 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “You can patiently endure.”
“He has the patience of Job.” We’ve all heard that compliment paid to individuals who displayed admirable patience in difficult situations. But what was it about Job’s patience that was so commendable? If you’ve read the story then you know that Job displayed incredible patience in dealing with his insensitive and sometimes mean-spirited friends. They supposedly came to comfort him during a time of great loss and suffering, but they ended up lecturing him in a judgmental and often unkind way. Had it been me I would probably have choked them, but Job displayed extraordinary restraint.
More important though, was Job’s patience with God. Job suffered an incredible series of cascading tragedies which included the deaths of all his children, the loss of his entire fortune, and a painful medical condition that must have been hideous in appearance and excruciating to endure.
But through it all Job remained faithful to God. In the verses above, we find him at the very beginning of all his troubles and obviously his faith was strong and his attitude was good. As the months (and perhaps years) unfolded, we read of him occasionally wavering a little but still, pretty strong in his faith, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.” Job 19:25 (NIV)
Then in the end, after Job had withstood this prolonged time of testing and had remained faithful, the Lord blessed him even more abundantly then He had before, “So the Lord blessed the last part of Job’s life more than the first.” Job 42:12 (HCSB)
It’s unlikely that any of us will be called upon to endure as much prolonged and simultaneous suffering as Job did. The sheer scope of what he went through is difficult to imagine. But we will all have our own times of trials and sufferings and like Job we will have a choice of how we will respond to it. As hard and as painful as things were for Job, he patiently endured it and he trusted in the Lord. He didn’t like it, and he certainly did not understand it, but he did trust that the Lord was wise and good, and the He was in control.
The same is true for you and me. We may not understand our current circumstances, and we might not like them, but we can have faith the God is good, and He is wise, and He is in control. Knowing that to be true of Him helps us to patiently endure.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 