DEVOTION - SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2012

DEVOTION – SATURDAY, MAY, 26, 2012

“Unshakable Faith in a Shaken World: God, What Are You Trying to Teach Me?”

BY

RON MOORE

| Job 2:7-10 | Devotional

Job 2:7-10 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" 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.

Job’s life had been a cakewalk—layers of moist blessings iced with a thick frosting of more blessings. Then the cake crumbled and he had to make a choice. It’s easy to love God when life is sweet. But can you love Him when it all tumbles in?

The spiritual life always involves a spiritual crossroads. After the verbal profession, there is normally a painful life experience that forces a decision. Are you in or out? Will you follow Christ or not? Are you a professor or a possessor? Job came to that crossroads in our passage today. He sat among the ashes of a broken body with a broken heart. Would he curse God and die? Or would he accept the blessings and the burdens?

Arthur John Gossip was the pastor at Beechgrove Church in Aberdeen Scotland. In 1927, he was 54 years old and things could not have been going better in his life or in the life of the church. Then very suddenly and unexpectedly his wife died. The Sunday after her death he preached a sermon, trying to reconcile his faith with such a sudden and tragic loss. These are his words:

I do not understand this life of ours. But still less can I comprehend how people in trouble and loss and bereavement can fling away peevishly from the Christian faith. In God’s name, fling to what? Have we not lost enough without losing that too?

Father thank you for the example of Job and Arthur John Gossip who clung to You in the difficult times of their lives. Lord, give us the strength to do the same. Thank You when blessings flow. Help us to thank you when trouble comes. In Christ’s Name. Amen.