January 26 - Job 26:1-29:25

Good morning everyone,

This morning as we begin reading, Job is once more shaking his head with a rebuttal to Bildad, telling him he’s got it all wrong, Job maintaining he has not compromised his integrity and with the longest speech in this book of Job, six chapters, Job will share a few more of his thoughts.

I love in  chapter 28:1-28 where Job speaks to wisdom and understanding. Read these verses 

s-l-o-w-l-y, totally take them in, envision them, live them in your mind. I know I say that a lot, and I probably will continue to do so but in our lives, our instant gratification type of lives, it is so easy for us to say and think “how big, how great is our God”, those words just roll off our lips with so much ease that I fear we, from time to time, they loose their value, we forget what they mean. Often, we don’t appreciate how much our God has to offer us if only, again, if only we will go to Him in search of what we need. In this case wisdom, I love the visual Job gives.

We have read that Eliphaz maintains that wisdom is learned by observing life, his attitude being one of; I have personally observed how God works and figured it out. Bildad claims wisdom is inherited from the past, his attitude being; Those who have gone before us figured God out and all we have to do is use that knowledge.Then there is Zophar, oh … Zophar all he’s got figured out is (sorry, I could not help myself, tee hee) wisdom belongs to the wise. He based his advise on his wisdom, that had no other source than himself, his attitude being; The wise know what God is like but there aren’t many of us around. Now Job, the one going through all this grief in his life is the only one who really gets it, he alone understands that God is the source of wisdom and the first step towards wisdom is to know God and hat God reveals His wisdom to those who humbly trust Him.

In chapter 29 Job speaks of his former blessings. Though no where near the level of grief Job suffered, I know a little bit about having your life ripped out from underneath you and thinking about former blessings. Nearly two decades ago that happened to me. I can clearly remember feeling like I was standing on the outside of my old life looking in, similar to that of standing on a sidewalk, while with no home of your own, no money in hand, your stomach is growling, you’re starving for food and you’re looking through the windows of a restaurant, desperately longing to be that person sitting at the table eating that marvelous meal; and no matter how bad you want it, how truly desperate you are for it, it just is not available for you at this time or ever again. It is beyond belief frustrating at best, incredibly defeating and yet such was life. Well, sometimes God moves us out of relationships, or maybe to a different city or maybe just a different church and while we may never see on this side of heaven the “why” of it all, we must trust in God’s perfect plan. It is when we just let ourselves rest in God’s loving arms that He will deliver us to something so much better than what we had before. He did for me. My life today is so much richer, so very blessed, and is so much more desirable than I could have ever imagined it to be all that time ago. While I am still a work in progress, I have learned that when I let go and let God, get out of His way and quit questioning the why, that’s when He will do His best work in my life and He will do the same for you in your life too if you let Him.  Thank you Jesus!

I pray you have a great day.

God bless you all and to God be the glory!!