Job 1:22 “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”
Satan hurled everything he could to throw Job off track and derail his relationship with God. He will try the same strategies with us…
First, Satan sends invaders to kill Job’s servants and steal his livestock. In an instant, his only means of income vanishes. No bank account. No 401K. No government assistance to tide him over. All of his considerable wealth—gone.
Satan’s next ploy gets close and personal. A wind sweeps in from the desert and causes the house where his sons and daughters are gathered to collapse. They all die. It’s hard enough to think about losing one child, but all your children? No more family dinners. No more family anything. His legacy—gone.
Satan is sure he can get Job to turn on God if he experiences physical suffering. He afflicts him with pain from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. Job endures so much agony that he wishes he had never been born. Even his wife incites him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). His health and vitality—gone.
Finally, Job undergoes perhaps the greatest test of all when his three friends offer him a twisted form of religion. They misrepresent God’s character (Job 42:7). Their rambling accusations of Job, if accepted, would have torn the very fabric of his faith. For although Job’s perception of God was short-sighted, he did not let his circumstances paint a picture of God with no room for redemption. When he eventually saw his error, he repented. And all that had been lost was—restored.
Make no mistake. Satan continues to use our crises to distort our perception of God. He tries to make us believe that a God of love would never let us suffer. Pain, physical or emotional, has a way of distorting the truth and our enemy takes full advantage of our vulnerability in hard times. We must not let him do that.
Whether you are facing financial difficulties, deep emotional loss, ongoing illness or a false theology that makes you think God’s grace depends on your own righteousness, don’t let anything weaken your relationship with God. More lies behind those circumstances than you or I can see.
Stay steady, my friend, in “all this” no matter what your “all this” might include.