Why Job Stumbled
Job started so well. His faith was as invulnerable to Satan’s onslaughts as a turtle snuggled up inside its shell is to the frantic pawings of a dog. Job tucked his head and feet inside his faith in God and said, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” What went wrong? There are at least four reasons Job’s trust in God took a tumble. First, he listened to bad counsel.
Avoid Bad Counsel
If you are going to handle your calamity in a wise, God-honoring manner, you must ignore well-intentioned but unbiblical counsel. If Job’s counselors had been from the church in our era, they probably would have said, “Job, look at these terrible things that are happening to you. We have to break the generational curses that have power over your life. We have to cast out the demons of skin disease. You need to send 500 dollars to the faith-healer, I. M. Acharlatan, at Better-for-a-Buck Ministries.”
People will say all kinds of crazy things to you when calamity strikes (“Don’t worry, God didn’t know this was going to happen.” Really? Now I am worried!). Don’t let their well-intended but unbiblical counsel trip you up spiritually and send you sprawling. To handle calamity, you must ignore unbiblical advice with a gentle smile and a thank you. People speak to you because they care; receive their counsel with a gracious attitude, but don’t let their unbiblical advice throw you into a tailspin like Job did.
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU TAKE ADVICE FROM.
SEPERATE THE GODLY ADVICE FROM THE UNGODLY ADVICE.
Time Keeps On Tickin’
A second reason Job went off the rails was that he let the termite of time gnaw at his faith. According to Job 7:3, Job’s grief and the burning torment of his physical ailments had extended for months by the time his friends arrived. Job’s suffering felt eternal; the sheer duration of it was wearing him down.
Like an eager marathon runner, Job bolted off the starting line of faith, but as the race of responding to his calamity stretched out mile after mile and day after day, Job’s faith began to stumble and stagger. Time is a killer in trials. Like Job, we start with strong faith, but as we tick off days on the calendar, turn over the page to a new month, eventually buy a new calendar for next year, and then a new one for the year after that, we can easily despair. Time makes trials hard.
How can you keep time from weakening your faith?
Daily Reliance Upon Grace
Jesus addresses this issue when he says,
Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(Matthew 6:34)
His point is that God gives grace one day at a time—for today, not for tomorrow.
Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation.
(Psalm 68:19)
The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
(Lamentations 3:22–23)
God’s grace is perfectly sufficient to tackle the challenges of the day he gives that grace. But his grace will always prove inadequate if you try to spread it across tomorrow’s problems as well. It’s like buttering bread—the dab of butter that’s more than adequate to cover one slice gets a bit thin if you try to spread it over a whole loaf. In the same way, don’t try to spread God’s strength for today over tomorrow, next month, or next year. Planning ahead is fine; worrying ahead isn’t.
Handle today with a joyful, dependent, God-trusting attitude. Tomorrow will have new troubles and new grace. But sometimes even a single day feels too long to face. What do you do then? Do the next right thing. That is Jesus’s principle, honed to a needle’s point. Sufficient is the trouble for the minute. Whatever the next right thing is—getting out of bed, cooking a meal, or going to work—do it, trusting God’s grace.
The Expectations Trap
In chapter 29, Job listed his many accomplishments. For example:
• He was a respected civic leader: “When I went out to the gate of the city … the old men arose and stood” (29:7–8).
• He was adored by the poor and disadvantaged because of his philanthropy: “I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame” (29:15).
• In summary he declared, “My steps were bathed in butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!” (29:6).
Because of his success and his great kindness to others, Job had built up some expectations—things he believed God owed him because he had been good. In chapter 30, Job had this flash of insight into his confused and angry heart.
When I expected good, then evil came; when I waited for light, then darkness came. I am seething within and cannot relax; days of affliction confront me.
(30:26–27)
Job had stepped directly into the expectations trap. Job expected good from God because he had been good, and when God didn’t deliver, Job was left seething. It’s an easy trap to fall into when calamity strikes. “All I wanted was a happy family, and now my daughter is divorced … my son is rebelling … my husband has left me. What did I do to deserve this?” The expectation? If I’m a good wife and mother, God owes me a happy family, as I define it.
A friend of mine whose child has Down Syndrome once shared with me that expectations are one of the greatest struggles faced by parents of handicapped children: “All I wanted was to watch my boy play sports, see him go to college, get married, and have a successful career. Now I have a son who will never pass grade two.” Expectations can be a real problem when we face calamity. Job’s summary is both pathetic and perfect: “When I expected good, then evil came” (30:26).
The expectation that God owes me good if I have been good is dangerous because it leads to feelings of betrayal and anger at God. God, however, never promises endless good if we are a devoted mother, a patient father, a faithful taxpayer, or if we don’t run with the wrong crowd at school. To handle calamity rightly, Christians must avoid Job’s mistake of building up the expectation that “God owes me because I’ve tried to be good.”
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
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PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM