God On Our Own Terms

So Satan answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin!  Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.  But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face!"  And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life."  So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the soul of his foot to the crown of his head.  And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity?  Curse God and die!"  But he said to her, "You speak as one o fthe foolish women speaks.  Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?"  In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job 2: 4-9 NKJV

It is said in scripture that Job was a righteous man.  In fact, scriptures describe Job as  "Blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil."  By all accounts, this man Job was not one whom God would choose to bestow tragedy on.  And yet, this is exactly what happens.  With a little help from Satan, Job loses his fortune and his family in a staggering series of events.  I challange anyone to read the tragedies of Job and ask themselves if they could overcome such adversity.  Now, I'm of the opinion that God allowed Satan to afflict Job in order to show Job just who his Lord was.  Through all of Jobs trials and troubles, he remained true to God and did not sin.  In the story of Job, I see one of our Lords greatest stories of restoration.  We may also want to add to that list King David, Abraham and the apostle Paul.  Our Lord is never in the business of destruction for destructions sake.  No, for should He choose to afflict us, we can be assured that His ultimate plan is our complete restoration in Him.  Granted, this "Restoration" may indeed come when He welcomes His children home with Him, but it will come.  As with all that our Lord does on our behalf, we may never know His motives.  However, we can be assured that He will always work for the good in our lives and never evil.

"For My thouughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55: 8-9 NKJV

One of the most difficult things any pastor or christian need ever attempt to explain is the death of a child.  The questions will ultimately come.  How could a loving God allow a child to be ripped away from their loving family?  In the pain of our grief, we may be tempted to demand of God just why He would allow such suffering.  Why God?  A better question might be to ask, why do we seek a God who acts only on our terms?  Would a predictable God be so much better?  Would the tragedy of Job have been averted had he known it was coming?  Would that child have been saved had the family known God would ultimately take it home with Him?  In both of these circumstances, had they known our Lords ultimate plan, it would not have changed the outcome.  In our arrogance, we often think of God in terms which we understand.  To better understand His ways, we often view God as a human entity with all of the thoughts, emotions and desires which we ourselves carry with us.  However, as we see in Isaiah 55, the thoughts and plans of our Lord are far above our own.  All too often, we're blinded by our own flesh in our attempts to understand our Lord.
After the recent passing of my mother, I asked these very same questions.  Why would a loving God take her away from those that loved her?  Why would a loving God take her away from her family?  God, don't you understand just how important she is to us?  In my own selfishness, I was blind to the simple fact of why God had chosen this time to call her home.  Why God?  My thoughts and prayers were all filled with just why I needed my mother to remain with us.  Not once did I consider one of the obvious reasons for her passing.  For my mother was in pain, having been confined to a nursing home for so long, one of her deepest desires had been to be healthy enough to return to a normal active life.  In my grief, I had forgotten the mercy of my Lord that He would remove this pain from her and ultimately free her from her earthly struggles.  Instead of seeing Gods love, kindness and mercy, I was looking for God on my own terms.

~Scott~