Everything Job had, livestock, servants, children, his own health, were taken from him. Yet through all of it his faith remained strong. He must have been overwhelmed and a little bewildered by all that had happened, but no one, including his wife, could accuse him of hypocrisy. Someone suggested that it’s no wonder Satan left Job’s wife alive as she was adding temptation to affliction, advising him to curse God so God would kill him for blaspheming. She was suggesting that death would be preferable to living through his trial. But Job’s words and actions demonstrated his confidence in God and his belief that God should be worshiped whether He was giving good gifts or allowing difficult trials.<\/p>\n
As parents we try to keep our children from experiencing suffering, giving them everything we can afford to make their lives as pleasant as possible. We might be wrong in doing this, and as a result we are raising them to be a spoiled generation that believes being truly loved by someone, God included, means getting everything they want and never experiencing anything painful or difficult. This popular notion of God in America today is not the God of the Bible, and the story of Job reminds us that life is just not that way. No one could love us more truly than our heavenly Father and He doesn\u2019t always give us what we request, but He does always give us what we need. The Book of Job reminds us of the dangers of believing in a God who rewards virtue with prosperity and success.<\/p>\n
There’s a story of a little girl who was riding along on her bike and bumped her head on a low-hanging tree branch. She ran into the house hollering, “Mom! Mom, Joey hurt me!” Her mom looked up from what she was doing and said, “Joey didn’t hurt you. Joey’s not even here. He went to the grocery store with your daddy.” Startled and bewildered, the little girl replied, “Whoa! You mean bad stuff like this can happen all on its own? Bummer!”<\/p>\n
“LORD, even in the face of difficulties today help us to hold onto our integrity and accept adversity.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n =============================================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n Job 2 KJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>\u00a0Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the\u00a0LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the\u00a0LORD.\u00a02<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the\u00a0LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.\u00a03<\/sup>And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that\u00a0there is<\/em>none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.\u00a0\u00a04<\/sup>\u00a0And Satan answered the\u00a0LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.\u00a05<\/sup>\u00a0But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.\u00a06<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto Satan, Behold, he\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>in thine hand; but save his life.\u00a07<\/sup>\u00a0So went Satan forth from the presence of the\u00a0LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.\u00a08<\/sup>\u00a0And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. 9<\/sup> Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.\u00a010<\/sup>\u00a0But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. 11<\/sup> Now when Job\u2019s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.\u00a012<\/sup>\u00a0And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.\u00a013<\/sup>\u00a0So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that\u00a0his\u00a0<\/em>grief was very great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everything Job had, livestock, servants, children, his own health, were taken from him. Yet through all of it his faith remained strong. He must have been overwhelmed and a little bewildered by all that had happened, but no one, including his wife, could accuse him of hypocrisy. Someone suggested that it’s no wonder Satan left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7482"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16432,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7482\/revisions\/16432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}