Word of the Day (9-12-11)

Good Morning Everyone

Today is Monday September 12, 2011

The word of the day comes from Job 2:9-10 NIV

 ⁹ His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
 ¹⁰ He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
   In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

My Interpretation

This is such a powerful illustration of standing firm on who you say you are, who you say you believe in and what you say you rest your faith on. I mean everything that could go wrong has gone wrong up until this point in Job’s life. When I say everything I mean everything. He lost his means of income, he lost his children. I know he’s thinking this can’t get any worse. He was faithful to God and all these things happened. He wasn’t living in a life of sin, he was doing what God called him to and these things still occurred. His wife unfortunately didn’t provide him with comfort but rather tried to tempt him into doing the one thing he vowed he would never do: curse God and die.

Notice she asked “are you still maintaining your integrity?” Have you had so many things go wrong that people wonder why you haven’t stopped going to church? They wonder why you are still paying tithes, still telling people how good God is, still trying to live according to the Word and will of God. The lights might be off, the kids might be suspended or in jail, the job might be demeaning and yet and still you are keeping your faith in God. Life is not presenting you with what you want but yet and still you are trying to find comfort in the one person who truly cares and understands you, God. Its amazing how much can be drawn from this. You would think that Job’s wife, his wife, would be on the same page as him providing comfort in his most vulnerable state. Yet she only seems to bring aggravation. What can we see in this? Even those we think are closest to us can have our ill will in mind. Those we think are with us and walking with us can really be against us or not walking with us unless the good times are good but the moment bad times come, they are nowhere to be found or they flip the script on what they say they believe. It really is true that when you can turn to no one else, you can rest assuredly in God.

This is the line that gets me: Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” We have to be able to see that in this life we will have good days and bad days, sunny days and rainy days, happy days and sad days, days of love and days of pain, days of joy and days of crying/mourning but in the midst of or in spite of God is still in control and He is good on both sides of the spectrum. When that realization becomes real to us it helps ease the bad days with knowing even when we feel alone that we aren’t and God is with us.
I want to end with a song that encourages me. Maurette Brown-Clark “It Ain’t Over.” The part that I want to focus is on is the ending:
Keep fighting, keep praying, keep fasting
It ain't over, no
Keep pressing, progressing, keep moving
It ain't over, no
Keep reading, interceding, keep believing
It ain't over, no
Keep trusting, keep trying, keep travailing
It ain't over, no
Keep living, keep giving, keep going
It ain't over, no (8x)
Keep fighting until your victory is won  

Have a wonderful, blessed, productive, stress free day!