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Keeping faith in the face of grief

There is one verse in the book of Job, which I battled with for many years. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” It is the latter part of the sentence which I used to find most difficult. The reason is because this man Job was a righteous man, who did everything in his power to please God. Yet when everything he loved was taken away from him including his children, his livelihood and his health he still managed to say 'blessed be the name of the Lord'. Try saying it when life knocks you down and you will know that it is one of the most difficult things to do. 

When I read this for the first time, I said to myself, I can never be Job. Being someone who has experienced loss of dear ones and been severely ill a couple of times, my first response was usually to battle with God, doubt him and even give up on prayer, on a number of occasion. But over the years, I began to realize something. Even when I was knocked down, somehow I found the strength to rise again and even when I thought that there was no way that things could be good again, I seen God change the most horrible situations in my favor. So now, whenever something bad happens, I remember what God did for me in the past and I hold on to that hope that he will do great things for me again. Over the years, having crossed many obstacles, it has become easier to say 'blessed be the name of the Lord', knowing that he is bigger and more powerful than any obstacle in my way. 

Like in the story of Job, suffering and pain brings with it, self-doubt, regret, guilt and a whole sea of emotions which in the story is represented through Job's friends. They accuse him, of having done something wrong to deserve such a punishment from God and often when we go through pain we feel like we are being punished. If that were true, what about Jesus' own disciples. Remember, Jesus loved his disciples but still he didn't promise them a life without suffering and pain, instead the only thing which they knew for certain was that they had to carry their cross and follow him. Like Job, the disciples never cursed God, but praised him even in their persecutions. Such faith is not born in a day, but is a result of years of experiencing a love so deep that it makes one praise God in their suffering and makes death lose its sting.

God isn't asking you to bear your sufferings quietly or to hide your feelings. Remember that Job was pretty angry and he poured out all his emotions and that's alright. He also surrounded himself with friends. But, in all of it, he stayed faithful to God and endured his suffering. In the end, God restored everything that he had lost and he was more prosperous than before. Still you may ask, why did he have to suffer at all, especially when he was such a good man? No, I don't have an answer to the age old question of ''why good people suffer?". 

Suffering was always looked upon as a curse just as the cross was always looked upon as a symbol of shame, they said 'cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree', yet that cross became for us a symbol of redemption. In the words of St Peter “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (Peter 1, 6-7).
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  1. UnknownAugust 8, 2019 at 7:30 PM

    What I have learnt all these years is God is a good God. What ever he give u in life I understand HE will never take it away from u. What He has given will remain.HE will never change His words nor take the things away from u.
    It is the man or the woman who looses it due to his or her own mistakes
    You may not know in what way u have sinned or gone against hill will. Sin is the one whom HE cannot withstand.Sin is the one which brings downfall and it's not God who is to be blamed.. Once the power of God leaves than its hard to regain.This is the reason what makes us suffer.Remember God doesn't want u and me to suffer. HE is the just God.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 9, 2019 at 8:40 AM

    It's wonderful lesrning

    ReplyDelete

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