I have finished the book of Job and I feel like I have been on a journey of my own. While reading Job I also read a book about a trial (it was fiction, but it followed the story of Job), and I heard sermons about trials, and I just started Cary Schmidt's book "Off Script." I don't know what God is doing in my life, but I feel he is preparing my heart for something or maybe showing me that how I have previously responded to past trials was not correct. We all have/will experience trials in our lives. We each have a choice of how we will respond during those trials. Will we wrestle or will we rest?
Having just finished up the book of Job, I can see a man who did question why he went through such a trial as he did. I can understand his question. He lost everything within what seems like just hours. His friends came to him and basically commanded him to repent because surely Job had some wicked sin in his life that caused these horrible things to occur. But Job searched his heart and knew that was not so. Did Job ever get the answer to his question of 'Why?" Not that we can see. Instead, God answered Job by describing how God was in control of everything and is mighty above even the greatest of creation! And then God blesses Job and increases all that he had!
Isaiah 43:2 says "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
It is not a matter of if you enter a storm of life, but rather when. We will all face storms in our lives. We will all go through trials where we feel we cannot go on any longer. I have gone through a few huge trials in my life. Does that mean I will not see trials any longer? No! They will continue to come. I just need to be ready and prepared to cling to God, knowing that this was all in His plan for my life even when I do not know why.
I love how Cary Schmidt describes a trial in his book "Off Script". This is what he shared with his children when he shared with them they would be experiencing a trial with his news of cancer. Here is what he says, "...a trial is like a precious treasure that God places in our hands and loans to us. It's a trust---a sacred trust. It's an opportunity to show His grace and goodness to others, and to be used by God in a very special way. God doesn't give trials to someone unless He has a special plan to use it. And this means He wants to use us---so I want us to respond the right way and honor the Lord through this."
We can clearly see how God used Job and his trial in just this very way!
We do not know when we will be faced with a trial. It could come at any time in the form of a phone call, an email, a letter in the mail, etc. But the truth is that we will all be faced with trials at some point in our lives. Will we allow those trials to torment us and steer us far away from God? Or will we allow those trials to mould and shape us to be more like Christ and to allow Christ to be seen more clearly in our lives?
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 1 Peter 1:7
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