Life Lessons

Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People? (Part Five)

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                            Zophar now spoke up….”You’re all talking too much and getting nowhere! Job, you think you know all the answers! If only we could hear what God has to say, He would tell us what this is all about……”     How often we feel like this!  In times of trouble, God seems to be far away. “You must have done something wrong, Job, for this to happen to you. If you put your sin away, then God will make things come right, there will be light at the end of the tunnel. That’s the way to be safe from further trouble”.

     Job was getting fed up with all these accusations and assumptions that he was a secret sinner. “It’s alright for you to talk! But I’m just as good as you are! There’s no need for people to laugh at me….just ask the animals, they know that God exists! We all know that He is in control of everything on earth, and that He makes the nations great and then pulls them down. I just wish I could speak directly to God, I would present my case as if I were in a court of law! You are all no help at all to me, you just condemn me out of hand!”      Job now makes a great statement of his faith in God….”Even if He kills me, I will still hope that He will listen to my reasons. I just want two things from Him…relief from this pain and then Him calling to me so I can answer! I know that we only live a few days and are then gone like a flower that withers away. A tree has more hope than we do…if it gets cut down then it will sprout again from its roots! But when we die, is there any hope?” Job seems to have reached the pit of despair…..”All this pain is like the wearing away of a mountain face by the continual running of water….nothing else counts in the face of this affliction!” What a lesson to us! Let us never waiver in our faith in times of trouble!

Then Eliphaz tries again,  and is even more condemning this time than the first time… “The trouble with you Job, is that you talk as though you know everything! You say wrong things, and you condemn yourself while you talk!”     He carried on in his rhetoric… “Were you the first man to be born? Do you know more than we do? You just listen to me! Those who turn against God get nowhere, all that they do turns to dust! You can’t get anywhere fighting against God.”    Job was fast losing patience with his friends and replied to this by saying, “I’ve heard all this before…a miserable lot of comforters you all are! You don’t know what it feels like…I feel full of wrinkles, and it’s as though God has taken me and shaken me to bits. I’ve cried until I can cry no more, and my friends all scorn me. It won’t be long before I’m dead, and then I can be buried. I feel just like a shadow, and there’ll be nothing of me left by the time this is all over!

     Perhaps you have felt like this at times….but take heart, God never leaves His own. In the midst of all these trials, Job was learning things that he would never forget, and that he would be able to pass on to others in the future. . (Job, chapters 11-17)

                                                                               

Life Lessons

Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People? (Part Four)

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     Job began to speak, “I wish I’d never been born, to feel like this! It’s a pity my mother ever gave birth to me!” He was in such pain that he had no rest, and he was wondering why God had allowed this calamity to come upon him….      This is a very human thought, one which we probably have all had at times when things go wrong. But we need to remember there is a much wider picture than what we can see at the moment, and that God will work things out in the end.     Eliphaz spoke up and replied to this (chapters 3-4)… “Don’t you know that God looks after those who follow Him? You’ve helped others when they’ve been in trouble, and now trouble has come to you and you complain!”     He went on, “I’ve had frightening experiences before today and I know we can’t stand before God….this trouble must have come from God to correct you for something, Job;  but things will come right in the end. Listen to what I’m saying.”    Job  replied to this by saying, “Oh, if only God would listen to me and take me away! Then I might be comforted instead of going through this time of distress. I feel like someone travelling through a desert and not able to find any water…I’ve never done any wrong to anyone!

     Bildad, the next friend, now spoke up…”Your words are like the wind, Job! You are missing the point; you must be sinning secretly for God to treat you like this!”      Some of us have suffered comments like this over the years, and there is no comfort in being told where you’ve gone wrong!      Bildad continued….”There is always a reason for everything that happens…swamp weeds can’t grow where there is no water, and those who forget God will reap the consequences!  God doesn’t help those who forget Him, but cheer up, things will come right in the end!”     Job replied, “I know what you are saying is right, but how can a person stand against God? He is so great and mighty! He has made the stars in the sky, and does wonderful things we can’t understand. Even though I know I am innocent, I can’t answer Him. Things just continue to go wrong! God is not a human being like we are, that I can answer Him! He made me like I am, and it seems that He is destroying me now. I wish He would tell me where I’ve gone wrong! Oh, leave me alone, so I can find some comfort!”

     When our friends suffer from some disaster, we must make sure to not try to figure out where the blame lies….this is no comfort at all, and does nothing to help whatsoever! It is better just to sit there quietly, and get them the things they need for their comfort. If you can’t be there with them to help, then just a quiet phone call or text now and then to remind them that they are not forgotten.                                                                                                 (Job, chapters 3-10)

Life Lessons

Why do Bad Things happen to Good People? (Part three)

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Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?  Part Three. 

                                    Job’s Further Trial.

     In the second chapter of the book of Job, we now have a another picture of the council of God meeting, with Satan present once more. Once again God asks Satan “What have you been doing?” with the answer that he had been roving backwards and forwards over the earth. We can rest assured, that just as he was doing that then, he will still be doing it today, and with all the crime and violence that is going on, it is obvious he is not idle!      God said to him, “Have you taken notice of Job? He still holds firm to his convictions in spite of losing everything he had.” “Ho ho,” replied Satan, “You touch his health and it will be a different story!” “Alright,” God replied, “He is in your power, but you are not to take his life.”

    We see from this conversation that Satan can only go so far in touching God’s people. We know that God allows certain things to happen to us to correct us and teach us more of His comfort. Paul said that his affliction (whatever it was), was a messenger of Satan to keep him humble and dependent on God  (2 Corinthians 12:7)    This answers the age old question of “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” We see from Job’s reply to his wife’s comment, that he too, thought this disaster had come on him from God. We all tend to blame God when some circumstance  outside our control brings disaster to us. Rather, we should look on these things as corrections and times of growing in His knowledge.

   Satan went out from God’s presence thinking he had Job this time, and chose the worst thing he could think of to torment him with….being covered with boils! There was no rest for Job with this….he could not sit or lie comfortably anywhere!    In spite of Job being such a devout and godly man, yet there were still things for him to learn from this experience, so this trial had a double point. It was showing Satan (and his cohorts) that there was a man who would remain firm in his convictions, no matter what happened to him, and at the same time teach him (Job) more valuable lessons about God’s faithfulness.

   This time Job’s trial really begins. His three friends heard about all the calamities that had befallen him, and how he was now in worse straits than ever with his health having given out. So they all came to visit him, to sympathise with him and show their support.    When they arrived, they were shocked at just how bad he was! They hardly recognised him as the person they knew! They showed their shock by weeping loudly and tearing at their clothes. Each of them sat down with dust on their heads, and then just sat there with him not saying a word! They stayed like that for seven days before they started talking….Job’s pain was so great with the boils that covered him, and he made matters worse by scraping the tops off them with a scraper of some sort. But even that, as they began to talk to him, paled into insignificance against what they had to say. It would have almost been better if they had all kept their mouths shut!

   What a lesson for us to learn! For those in deep grief it is some times better to say nothing than to even say “I know what it’s like for you!” Even when we’ve been through some traumatic experience, no-one else can step into your mind and know how you feel, as everyone is different.   

     So next time we will look at Job’s friends’ advice and see what we can learn from it all…..

Life Lessons

Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People (part two)

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     Last week we saw God calling His council together and how Satan also attended it. God challenged Satan to find a man who was better than His servant Job. Job was as righteous as a man could be, and he followed God with a  perfect heart. Satan said to God, “Isn’t he following You for what he can get out of it?  You protect him from everything bad, but if You let me get at him, he will curse You to Your face!” But God knew His man, and He gave Satan permission to do his worst to Job without touching Job’s person. This is how it happened…..

The next day, Job got up early as he usually did, and made the morning sacrifice for himself and his wife. Then he made another sacrifice to cover each of his children. As he did this, he prayed for each of them, as he did every day. “Lord”, he said, “Please help the boys to stand firm for you; help them to resist temptations, and always be helpful to their mother and sisters. I pray for the girls, Lord that they will not be vain with how they look, but that they will try their best to be beautiful with their minds and their speech.”    Job knew that his eldest son was putting on a party that day for his brothers and sisters, and he hoped that everything would go well for them all. While he was sitting there after breakfast thinking about them, he saw one of his servants rushing up the path. He could tell something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” he called out as the man got close enough to hear. “We were out in the field ploughing with the bullocks and the donkeys were there beside them when a marauding tribe from over the hill came and rounded them up, killing all the herdsmen, and I’m the only one who got away!” With that, he fell down on the ground panting with the run, and fright at what he had seen.

    The man had hardly finished telling Job this when another servant came panting up. “Oh!,” he said, “There was a massive lightning storm over the paddock where the sheep were, and they have all been struck dead as well as the other servants there. I’m the only one who managed to get away to tell you!”   

A third servant came panting in from another direction and said, “The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yes, and killed the servants with swords; and I only am escaped alone to tell you.”

Job hardly had time to take all this in when another servant came rushing in from the direction of the oldest boy’s house. “Oh, oh,” he wailed when he saw Job, “Your sons and your daughters were eating their meal and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house when there was a terrific gust of wind rushing in from the desert like a tornado, and the roof was lifted off and the whole thing collapsed on everyone else in the house, and they are all dead! I’m the only one to  escape and tell you!”

   Job had been sitting down all this time, and now he stood up and tore his long robe off his shoulders. He went inside and shaved the hair all off his head to show how upset he was. His wife and servants wondered how he would cope with all this bad news and the disasters that had happened. But he didn’t curse or swear, or even complain. It didn’t even enter his head to ask God why this had all happened.   

Instead, he got down on his knees and prayed in front of everyone left in his house, and said, ” I was born naked with nothing, and I will go back to God the same way, with nothing. The LORD gave me these things, and the LORD has taken them away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”     In all these disasters Job didn’t sin or complain and blame God foolishly. He had truly shown a godly attitude to a disastrous situation, just as God had known he would.

    What a lesson this is to us today!  Here was a man who had just received bad news about his family and all his livestock and servants. All he could do was to say that God was blessed in all that He does! He didn’t blame God for these disasters that had befallen on him, he took it all on the chin as it were.

     But that is not the end of the story of Job, and we will see next time what happened next to Job and why it came about.

Life Lessons

Why do Bad things Happen to Good People?

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                                  Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

    A good friend of ours was ill for a couple of weeks and in the end she went to the doctor when her breathing became difficult. After numerous tests, she was told that she had an aggressive type of lung cancer. Needless to say this left everyone who knew her in a state of shock. “Why her?” people were asking, “She did so much good around the place!!”    People often ask this question….it just seems that life isn’t fair!! We do the best we can and then things go wrong for us! I got to thinking about this age-old question and then thought about a man in the Bible whose name was Job (pronounced Jobe). He was a good man who always did the best he could and then he lost everything. But reading this story  will give us a picture of why this happened which will help us to see things differently and put them in a wider picture when things go wrong for us too.    Let’s turn to the book of Job in the Bible and see what it says about him….

  In chapter one, verse one, we read….”there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, one who feared (respected and reverenced) God and who hated evil.” So we see that Job always did his best and as we read down the chapter, we see the things that he did for himself and for his family. Let’s turn it into a story……

   One day, God’s team of angels came to report to Him. God noticed a shiny, glistening, sneaky looking one among them who  didn’t usually come, and recognised him instantly. “Where have you come from, Satan?” He asked. “I’ve been walking up and down all over the place,” Satan replied shiftily. “Have you seen any person as good as My servant Job is?”, God asked, “No-one else is as good in the whole world as he is….he loves Me and hates everything evil! He makes me an offering every day, not only for himself but also for his family.” “Ho”, sneered Satan looking at God, ” No wonder he is so good! You look after him on every side, and have given him all he’s got! I bet if you took it all away from him it’d be a different story! He would curse You to Your face if that happened!!”     God knew His man, and He knew He could trust Job to do the right thing. “OK,” He said to Satan, “We’ll see. I’m allowing you to take away everything that he has. I know he will stand firm for Me.”  Satan chuckled gleefully. ” I’ll make him sorry for following God’s ways. I can beat him!”    So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD…..

So you can see that more goes on behind the scenes, than we know about, and next time we will see what happened.

Adult Testimonies

A Word in Season….

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         Our friend Harold had worked for many years in the prison service, and he had many stories to tell of opportunities taken to share the good news of God’s love and grace.

      But before he went into the prison service, he was working at selling life insurance. As he was going on his rounds in a certain area, he heard of a family who was wanting to take out life insurance on some of their family members. He decided to make them a call and see if he could help in this way at all. When he knocked on the door, a lady answered it and she appeared to be in tears. “I’m awfully sorry,” Harold said, “I seem to have come at a bad time. I’ll come back another day.” “No, no”, she said, “I really need someone to talk to.”

And so the story came out. Her marriage had just broken up, she said, and her husband had taken the two older girls, leaving her with two young sons. Harold listened sympathetically for a while, and said, “Well, there’s not much I can do to help, but do you have a Bible in the house?” “Yes, there is one here,” she said, “It belongs to one of the boys,” and she went off to get it.     Harold took it, and showed her one or two verses. After he had been talking for a while, she said that she had been going to church for over twenty-one years and never realised that she needed to have personal dealings with God. She could see now what she had been missing out on. Harold was not one to ever miss an opportunity, so he asked her if she would like to pray the sinner’s prayer of confession of sin. She was glad to do this and became a new person in spite of her continuing bad circumstances.

   Harold lost touch with her after that, and eighteen years later, two women came into the prison where he was working as a guard, to visit an inmate. Harold immediately recognised the older lady as this same person.     He reminded her of this occasion and asked her how things had been with her over the intervening years. Her face lit up, and she told him how she was still continuing in the faith, and that one of her boys was now serving as a Youth Pastor in a church in Australia.

This story bears out the verse that says….. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning…Psalm 30:5b

Morning Musings

Who is in Your Boat?

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       I was reading this morning, that well-known story of the disciples of Jesus caught in a storm as they rowed across the large lake of Galilee. It wasn’t that they had deliberately gone out in bad weather, they had gone in obedience to their Master’s instruction….He had told them to go, He knew very well what was going to happen on this trip, and He wanted them to learn another lesson of Himself. It wasn’t that they were ignorant of the conditions on the Sea either, as they were seasoned sailors and fishermen.    After darkness had fallen, the wind suddenly got up and they found themselves battling against it as they rowed with all their might to get to the shelter of the other side. Then one of them saw a figure out on the water, seemingly walking on the waves. They cried out in fear, saying it must be a ghost and then they heard the voice of their Teacher saying , “Don’t be afraid, it is I”.      Peter, true to form, (he was always the first to speak) said, “Lord, if it is really You, tell me to come to You on the water!” “Come on then”, Jesus replied, and Peter clambered out of the boat, and found that he was indeed able to walk on the top of the waves. He took a few steps towards Jesus, and then looked around at the boisterous waves. It was too much for his faith, and he became very frightened and began to sink. Jesus stretched out His hand and pulled him into the boat with Him, saying “Oh, you of little faith, shy did you doubt Me?”      The other disciples had been watching all this happen and then when Jesus and Peter were back in the boat, the wind had suddenly died down, and immediately they were miraculously where they were going to on the other side.     The disciples were amazed and speechless. “Truly, You are the Son of God!” they exclaimed. When they admitted this, they found they had reached their destination! What a wonderful picture for us when we go through troubles and trials….if we realise that God is with us in theses trials, so we will find the resolution to it all….maybe not straight away, but eventually.

When God tells you to do something, He will be with you all the way and there is no need to be  afraid…. when He takes you to it, He will see you through it!

Random Devotional Thoughts

How Do You Stack up?

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     We had a baptismal service at our church this morning when four young people were baptised. Each of them gave very clear testimonies as to why they wanted to be baptised, and how they had come to know the Lord for themselves. To them God was not just a force “up there”, but He was personally their Father in Heaven.

    How many people say the Lord’s prayer today starting with “Our Father which art in Heaven”, and they don’t know God as their Father at all! We wouldn’t dream of approaching just any man out there, and calling him “Father”  and asking Him to supply our daily food. Not only that, but how many people think, or want, to go to heaven when they die without even thinking what they will find when they get there! Heaven is God’s home, and as such is holy and pure, without a single jarring note, and full of the praise of God. How could anyone who can’t praise God here on earth, think they are going to be able to do this in heaven? Yet so many people think this without even realising what the implication of being in heaven is! Let’s hope you aren’t one of these, and that you make sure that God is indeed, your Father! You might be wondering how you can do this….it is very simple, just ask Him and tell Him you are sorry for the things that you have done wrong ! When He sees that you really mean what you say, He will become your Heavenly Father, and you will have the right to call Him this….”Our Father!”

See what God has to say to YOU.