I am not sure you knew this but I have been reading through the Bible since July 2010, it has been 16 months and I am only in Job. Sometimes in the past year and a bit I have been so frustrated by the fact that I felt as if I had made no progress on reading through the Bible, it was so frustrating to look forward and see how much I had to read, or look bad and see how little I had read. But now I am have reached Job, this was a book that I was dreading, whenever I read it before it was because I felt like I should just so I could say I had read it like a good Christian.
But when was the last time any of you have sat down and read job, not just reading it to finish it but to just soak in God's word. Job is powerful, I mean it starts out with God bragging about Job 'Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”' (Job 1:8 NIV) God is bragging about Job like a proud father brags about his children. So God tells Satan that he believes in Job and Satan can test him, he can take everything about the man, but not harm Job himself. Still Job doesn't turn away from God he remains faithful, so then Satan challenges God again “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” (Job 2:4), so God relents again trusting Job to remain faithful, his only condition is that Satan cannot kill Job. Again Satan goes and strikes Job with illness that causes him to be covered in soars all over his body. Still Job does not curse God instead he says "...Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)
Job is special, lets be honest most people (and by most I mean most likely everyone) does not have everything taken away from us including our health, family, homes, everything and act like Job. Job grieves yes, but he hasn't sinned yet, blaming God for this, Job has not stopped worshiping.
I love that verse "...Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" God does not promise us that our lives are going to be filled with happiness, God does not promise that our lives are going to be easy. Actually its the opposite we can look throughout the Bible, both old and new testaments and find that the peoples lives who followed God where in fact not easy at all. We will find that they are constantly being attacked whether verbally or physically because they are different and people don't like different.
If we are going to be different, if we are going to follow God we should accept the good AND the bad, the hard, the messy, the scary, everything. This life is about so much more then happiness.
