Lessons From Job

Job 30: 29-31

 

29 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

31 My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.

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Lessons From Job

The book of Job is full of mysteries. In sorting through the mysteries of Job’s sufferings, one thing is plain: He held on to God and God held on to him. What are some of the other things I’ve learned from reading Job? Well…

The book of Job Is Both Reality and a Parable.

The book of Job taught me that Almighty GOD sits high and looks kindly with great, unfathomable love, upon His children here below. There are many deep and dark sayings in the book of Job. It is not easy to read and comprehend. Indeed, the hidden things of GOD are not for us to know. We struggle to understand even that which is revealed to us.

As The LORD sits high, with thoughts that are higher than ours, He can also lift us higher than our most lofty desires and aspirations. Even as we live and carry out our business beneath His gaze, and walk upon an earth of unfathomable depths, sailing anchored through a universe of unfathomable vastness, even as the universe is beneath the feet of our GOD, so likewise vast are the depths to which we as sparrows can fall. Yet, there is no depth too deep from which we cannot be held and lifted up.

So as the pendulum of life arcs between Heaven and earth, finite and infinite space and beyond, the LORD in His greatness, goodness and mercy is able to steady our sails and make sure the compass of our destiny according to His will. We may never know the whys of our journey between alpha and omega. We may never understand fully why or how we went from first to last, or from master to servant of all. But we do know this: That GOD has said “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

So we know that if we abide in His righteousness, the path to the end of the line leads to the head of the line. This is GOD’s geometry. We also know that The LORD has said that he who would be master, must first be servant of all. Our Lord Jesus, who came for our salvation, washed the feet of His disciples, healed the sick, raised the dead. Our precious Master was servant of all. What then are we? Have we not been told that the servant is not greater than the master; so if Christ has been a servant here on earth, what then is our fate? Is this fate not rich when we serve as unto Him and not unto ourselves?

I learned that mankind is of the earth, and therefore like the earth, which must be blasted and mined to bring forth its riches. Likewise that which The LORD sees as our potential jewels are not found on our skin or even within our flesh but must be brought forth from a hidden space buried (or simply unseen?) deep within our soul-space.

The process by which The LORD perfects us does not leave the life around us, or even always our bodies untouched. He uses affliction like the refiner’s fire. The jewel is brought forth out of the earth by violence, and after it is brought forth it is not left untouched if it is to increase in value. But rather it is subjected to fire, cut with sharp instruments, searched microscopically for flaws.

Our LORD is relentless in His desire to make His children more like Himself. Even when we to our own eyes seem whole, He who sees all sees more. Even when we are satisfied, He who thoughts are higher than ours than the Heavens are above the earth, seeks and will take us to higher ground. If we would but go.

As The LORD commissioned and empowered Gideon saying:  “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?” (Judges 6:14)

There it is. You’ve been sent. So get going already! Until we meet again: “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” (Ephesians 6:10)

– Verneda

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