Then Job replied to the Lord,” I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, “Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things to wonderful for me to know.
You said, “listen now, and I will speak; I will question you and you shall answer me.”
My ears had only heard of you but now my own eyes have seen you.
Job 42: 1-5

Can we be real for a moment? Isn’t it amazing that most of the time we are left bewildered and confused about this Christian life? I don’t know about you but following the Lord has more times than not thrown me for a loop. I get that we as Christians are to be loving and kind, growing in grace, forgiving, generous and full of faith, but on any given day, faced with any given circumstance sometimes I am tempted to go the other way.

Now when I say tempted, I mean there are some things I have learned through painful experiences, spiritual spankings if you will, that hopefully I would not willingly and knowingly fall back into, but the Word of God is clear that we should take heed where we stand lest we fall, so I am not going to proclaim that I will not fall, I only hope by the Lords grace I wont give in to a certain temptation.

Even still, I fall short every day and I am all too aware of those shortcomings. Oh I know that as a Christian we should be holy, and righteous, strong and faithful, and you and I are all those things, BUT not because we act that way, pray that way or talk that way, we are that way because Christ paved the way and there is no one, no, not even one who is good but God.

Why is it that when we were found by God, lost in our unbelief and sinfulness, completely separated from the Father when He saved us from the trash can of hell, and we came into the knowledge of the Son of God, born of the spirit, made a new creation, why is it that the faith and love of God in our hearts and minds was so simple and uncomplicated?

We had hope and faith, I mean the faith to go and move countries not just mountains, I can remember going and telling every neighbor I knew that Jesus saved me and they should know Him too, I didn’t care what they thought, what their reaction was, despite the fact that I offended most of them in my zeal for Him, the Lord saved two of them through this human vessel during my early walk with Him

Do you remember that time He grabbed a hold of you and your heart burned within you? You couldn’t get enough of Him, you read your bible, you couldn’t wait to go to church, you prayed and you just believed God would and could do anything. Prayers were heartfelt and genuine and you would seek him over anything and everything.

What happened?

Is He not the same God today that He was yesterday? Of course He is, but the problem lies not with the Father, but with us. You see walking with the Lord for any length of time always produces change. Change in thought, change in behavior, change in countenance and change in what we ultimately believe. You and I are not the same people we were a year ago, whether we have grown up or grown apart, nevertheless we are different.

You might say, well I haven’t changed at all, but I beg to differ with you because even if one stays the same, stays bitter for example, the bible says the end of a thing is greater, so if you were bitter then and you haven't dealt with it, than you are even more bitter today than you were yesterday, you are different for better or worse.

Life has a way of blowing all our mindsets, agenda’s and reasoning’s out of the water. Following God can and does lead to confusing times. Some would disagree but as this passage from Job’s own lips comes to light, scripture would say that sometimes there are more questions about the Father than answers.

Have you ever been faced with a situation where you had all the faith, all the hope and expectancy that God would answer your prayer- in your favor? Only to have your prayer go up and a mountain of questions come raining down on you?

Job understood this all to well. He proclaimed” blessed be the name of the Lord, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away” but as time passed, as pressure and painful circumstances mounted upon him, the same man then said “cursed be the day I was born!”

Most people stay away from the book of Job, on the surface it appears that the Lord and Satan are playing a game at the expense of this man, but upon closer look through the eyes of the Spirit, one can find comfort in the revelation that nothing happens without God’s permission and the Lord only permits evil to go so far. One can realize that the Lord knows the integrity He placed in Job, and He also knew he would prevail and come through this painful season into a great reward.

This painful nine-month period in Jobs life would ultimately cause the man of God to say, “I only heard of you before but now I have seen you with my own eyes.” When Job questioned the Lord, the Lord answered him with questions; “were you there when I did this and were you there when I formed that?” Sometimes God does not give us the reason why we endure suffering and hardships, I suppose thats where we learn how to trust and grow, through the adversity, sometimes we have to be willing to say, "The LORD gives and the Lord takes away; BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD EITHER WAY!"

What can we learn from prayers that go up and questions coming down? We can learn that God can do all things, that His plan is the best plan, that He see’s it all and that there is an appointed time for you and I to come out of our trials and testing. There is something up ahead more wonderful than everything behind us.

And the Lord blessed Job more in the second half of his life than He did in the first....

Hold On, The BEST IS YET TO COME!