Many people say:
"God does not answer my prayers"
or
"God breaks His promises, they don't apply to me"
or
"I tried praying and it didn't work"
or
"God seems to enjoy punishing me"
or
"Many bad things have happened to me, God wouldn't let bad things happen to good people"
How do we begin to understand these statements in light of what the Lord told us?
We can begin with the story of Job:
Job 1:1In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.2He had seven sons and three daughters, 3and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
Read that ^^ and if you don't know the story of Job go grab your Bible and read it, its important. Was Job a good man? Yes. Read how the Lord describes Job, do we consider ourselves to be better men or women than Job? Probably not. And look what happened to Job...Of particular note is this statement:
He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
Now think about that. Would any of us consider ourselves to be the greatest person in the north or south or east or west? No. So think about how far Job had to fall. If you are already skimming the bottom and you hit the bottom you really didn't take much of a drop. If you are riding the heights of the heavens and you are brought to rock bottom that is quite a fall. That's what happened to Job. And yet, what was Job's reaction?
20At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.c
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”
22In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
Was Job a great man. Yes, he was VERY great. Who among us could take a vertical free fall like that, smack the ground with a thud then get right up and worship the Lord? Notice the Lord's comment on this:
22In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
Do bad things happen to good people? Yes. Did the Lord ever promise any of us an easy ride into eternity? No. Some of the greatest. most righteous and sinless men went through absolute HELL and in spite of it all held onto their faith and did not charge the Lord with wrongdoing. Please understand this writer absolutely trembles at the story of Job and the bad things that have happened over and over again to some of the greatest saints to ever walk this earth. This brother has been shown his own weakness by up close and personal inspection and I am in awe of my own weakness. Just think about what Job went through, he lost sons and daughters and wealth and stature and respect, his health, sound mind and peace, he lost EVERYTHING, and yet look at how he responded.
Who among us has been through a "Job experience" and responded like he did. Who among us had that much greatness and took that kind of fall and responded the way Job did? I dare say none of us. We all have tribulation and we all have hard times but lets compare what we have been through to what some of the greatest saints went through then recalculate how good the Lord has been to us.
Recently the Lord performed another miracle in this brother's life but part of that process was being drug down to the bottom of a very dark place, to the depths of despair where my faith was tested like it never has been before. While I was at the very bottom the enemy spoke to me and told me exactly what Job's wife told him "curse God and die." Thanks be to God that moment was brief and the Lord enabled me to quickly recover from it but I can tell you I did not think I could be brought to such a place and I was taken there. It happened in a flash and what we decide in those moments of testing makes all the difference.
Another thing that happened when I was dragging the bottom is the enemy and my flesh wanted to install a "root of bitterness" within me. That comes from asking "why?" over and over again.
| ... you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. |
Once we allow a root of bitterness to grow inside us what happens? It causes trouble and it defiles many (you and those around you). How? How can you hold onto faith and bitterness at the same time? What happens to your testimony when a root of bitterness is poisoning your words?
Often when you listen carefully to what someone says when they are telling you how "God does not answer prayer" or any of the other statements at the top of this post, you will detect that root of bitterness has taken hold within them.
to be continued..
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