Job's response to his wife's suggestion that he curse God and die is magnificent. "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks" (Job 2:10). Hats off to the old patriarch! In his weakened condition, sitting there in the misery of all those sores, not knowing if any of that would ever change, he stood firm—he even reproved her. He said, in effect, "I need to correct the course of this conversation. We're not going there."
He went further than stating a reproof; he asked an excellent question. "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (v. 10). His insight was rare, not only back then, but today. What magnificent theology! How seldom such a statement emerges from our secular system.
Job is thinking these thoughts: Doesn't He have the right? Isn't He the Potter? Aren't we the clay? Isn't He the Shepherd and we the sheep? Isn't He the Master and we the servant? Isn't that the way it works?
Somehow he already knew that the clay does not ask the potter, "What are you making?" And so he says, in effect, "No, no, no, sweetheart. Let's not do that. We serve a God who has the right to do whatever He does and is never obligated to explain it or ask permission. Stop and consider—should we think that good things are all we receive? Is that the kind of God we serve? He's no heavenly servant of ours who waits for the snap of our fingers, is He? He is our Lord and our Master! We need to remember that the God we serve has a game plan that is beyond our comprehension, including hard times like this."
And I love this last line, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips" (v. 10). There's absolute trust there. And faith. "Sweetheart, we can't explain any of this, so let's wait and watch God work. We would never have expected what happened. Both our hearts are broken over the loss. We've lost everything. Well—not everything. We've still got each other. Our God has a plan that is unfolding, even though we cannot understand it right now. Let's wait and watch to see what He will do next."
Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Listen to today's broadcast of Insight for Living with Chuck Swindoll at OnePlace.com.
Visit the Bible-teaching ministry of Chuck Swindoll at www.insight.org.
