There Was A Day

{archive from 2013} The story of Job is not that different from your story or mine. Job was a man just living his life. He had work and financial responsibilities. He had friends and family. He was a devoted father who prayed over his children each day. Job loved the Lord and life was good. It was good, that is, until it wasn’t. The poor guy just never saw it coming.  

“Now, there was a day…” (Job 1:6)

  I know you can relate. You are doing carpool and paying bills. You go to work and the grocery store. You’re taking care of little children or elderly parents. You have cookouts with your friends and birthday parties with your family. Then, there is a day. A rejection letter arrives. A job is deleted. A diagnosis is confirmed. A spouse leaves. A child becomes ill.   Without warning, there is a day and nothing is ever the same. You find yourself face to face with suffering and you never saw it coming.   Most folks are familiar with the story of Job. Possibly, you are aware of the bare bones of this portion of Scripture. A good guy has really bad things happen to him. After a period of pain, God restores and all is well. This, however, does a great disservice to the suffering that he endured. It also glosses over the important truths in those pages that can help you and I when we encounter heartache and suffering. Because, let’s face it, we live in a fallen world and suffering is bound to find us.   Chances are, at this moment, you are hurting or you know someone who is hurting. Everyone is experiencing pain to some extent. We live in a world that is not our home. We are, as Peter reminds us, exiles in a foreign land. This place is broken and it hurts. We hurt and we bleed and we long for home.   Suffering always seems to catch us by surprise, doesn’t it? No one ever says, when tragedy strikes, “Ah, I’ve been expecting you.” Why is that? Part of the reason is that, as adults, we spend a lot of time explaining away evil. We tell our children that monsters do not exist. We check in the closet and under the bed and give the “all clear” sign. Most horror movies are so over the top that we just roll our eyes at the absurdity of it all. I think Satan likes it that way. Satan may be crafty, but he is not creative. He’s been using the same bag of tricks for a long, long time. He would love nothing more than for people to think he doesn’t even exist. After all, who is going to spend time and energy guarding against something that isn’t real?   There is just one problem. Satan is very real and he is on the prowl. He is not a little red figure with a pitch fork trying to convince you to have a second piece of cheesecake. Treating him like a cartoon character is a dangerous thing to do. Because, while we are living like he doesn’t exist, he is seeking to devour each of us.  

“The Lord said to Satan, ‘From where have you come?’

Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’” (Job 1:7)

  Job had an enemy who walked the earth – and so do we. Sadly, we often do not realize it until there is a day.