“Now that I have prepared my case, I know I will be vindicated.”
~ Job 13:18
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you have days when nothing seems to go right for you? Do you have times when everyone seems to be against you? Do you have moments when you wish that everyone and everything would just go away because you have just had it with everyone and everything? Do you sometimes feel as if God has totally forgotten you? Do you sometimes feel when you are trying to talk with God that He is not listening to what you are wanting Him to hear? Do you sometimes feel like God is punishing you for something that you know that you did not do? Every guy, gal or kid has felt and/or is feeling and/or will feel like a Job. Have you ever felt like a Job? A Job is a guy, gal or kid who ends up suffering big time because he or she is being led by God to maintain an absolute trust in Him which a fallen angel absolutely does not want the guy, gal or kid do. The fallen angel is Lucifer – or Satan. The real Job ended up being a battle ground for Lucifer in Lucifer’s vain and absurd attempt to usurp and appropriate the power and control that God has over His dominion that He alone created and put in motion. The Job Book is about Job ending up being caught in this never-ending conflict between the totally bad being – Lucifer, and the totally perfect Being and creator of all things – God. Job’s life story is about a guy who found himself in the middle of a challenge that had been made by the totally bad being when he stopped for a moment to talk with the totally perfect Being. Job was selected to be the earthly pawn in the heavenly power struggle that ensued. Before Lucifer began wreaking havoc on Job’s life, God had Job hardwired to be a faithful follower of His who would never denounce or turn his back on Him no matter what might happened to him. God put a caveat on the encounter that He allowed the totally bad being – Lucifer, to have with Him that he could not have Job killed. The totally bad being was allowed by God to cause Job unspeakable angst by having his kids killed, his possessions stolen and his body covered with sores.
Job 13 has Job lamenting about the predicament that he has found himself in, about three guys – who he refers to as being worthless physicians, who call themselves his friends and about God – Who he thinks may be punishing him for something that he does not remember doing. Job has come to realize that the three self-proclaimed counselor ‘friends’ – Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, are utterly untrustworthy. Job is confident that God will one day punish the three self-appointed counselor ‘friends’ for their deceptive lying. Job knew that the three self-ascribed counselor ‘friends’ were not actually speaking for God even though they were saying that they were. Job knew that one day God would vindicate him for what was happening to him. Job says in verse 18, “Now that I have prepared my case, I know I will be vindicated.” Job’s survival from the crisis that he found himself in was solely based on his hope and faith in God. Long before the world fell on top of him, Job had learned to unconditionally trust in God to see him through whatever predicament that he might find himself. Job could never have predicted though the kind of implausible quandary that he found himself having to suffer through but . . . Job was not going to give up his faith in God nor was he going to give up trying to get God’s attention. Instead of getting a lot of encouraging help from the three so-called ‘friends’, the three ‘judgers’ really believed that God had told them to condemn Job for his attitude, for an unknown indiscretion and for being responsible for bringing down on himself what was happening to him.
Your grandmaa and grandpaa can give plenty of examples from their own lives when they have felt caught in the middle of a spiritual war happening between the forces of good and the forces of evil. It is not a fun time for a guy, gal or kid when every guy, gal or kid seems to be against him or her and no guy, gal or kid seems to want to advocate for him or her. It is not a fun time when everything seems to go wrong or nothing seems to go right. To do what Job did – which was to continue to completely trust in God in spite of everything that was happening in his life and in spite of everything that was being said to him, is exactly what God wants you to do; it just is not as that easy to do it. It is much easier to look for a reason for why something awful is happening in your life or to ask why a guy or gal is saying such awful things to or about you versus looking skyward and seeing forces of good doing all that they can do to defend you from the forces of evil who are doing all that they can do to destroy you. Two weeks after your grandmaa began going four days a week into OC International’s headquarters office, your grandmaa was tasked to take two new OC International missionary candidate units through a two and a half day orientation that included an introduction into the ethos of OC International. One of the units – a couple with Korean ethnicity, had been clearly led by God to join OC International. This dynamic young couple has already spent several years going into and living in China. Their whole entry process into OC International was going along just fine until they were told that they were to attend the upcoming OC International’s summer’s internship six week program. Because they had already told their supporting churches, families and friends that they were going to go back to China in a matter of months, this couple was feeling like a Job yesterday after being told by OC International that they really did not have a choice if they really felt God wanting them to be OC International missionaries that they would have to attend OC International’s upcoming summer’s internship program. This couple by yesterday afternoon had gotten past feeling that they were being asked to do something that did not fit into their plans and had come to realize that God was preparing them more and more to be better able to live life as Christ-followers among their Chinese hosts.
Job 13 (447)