22^nd August

“His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.”

Job 2:9-10

When our world around us crumbles, can we still stand firm and praise God through the storm? What if your life and health were affected? Well, this is exactly what happens to Job in today’s passage. In chapter one, the enemy asks God (notice that all authority was and is God’s!!) if he can destroy everything around Job, in order than Job might curse God! he wanted to prove that mankind is not loyal to God, that when tough times come, people are quick to turn the backs on God! Yet satan was proved wrong. Job did the opposite and praised God despite everything around him being destroyed. In chapter two, satan once again goes to God and asks for permission to bring physical pain and ill health to Job. Yet once again, Job refuses to curse God, but rather praise His name, despite His physical afflictions.

One can only imagine how Job must have felt. His family dead, everything he once owned gone, and now here in chapter two, even his own wife is encouraging him to curse God and die. Yet Job knew that all he had, was all from God. If so, then when it all was taken away from him, he had no right to curse God. Job’s life and attitudes teaches us a valuable lesson, about how much we value our things, even our own bodies. All we have is God’s anyway. If we understand this, then when we are in lack, even if what we have is taken away unjustly, we can still praise God, because all good things are from God. We can trust Him, that He is with us. We must be able to learn to praise God, even when our own lives are in peril. Sadly, Job’s wife, who equally lost all she had, including her own children, couldn’t come to the same conclusion, and her words were even counted as ‘foolishness’ by her husband.

Let us too, not be ‘foolish’, but wholly and completely trust God, that even in the storm, even in lack, His steady hand is with us, and all that we lack, He will provide! Praise Him!