God Took Full Responsibility [Job 2]

  3The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.4Satan answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5"However, put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face."
 6So the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life." 7Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8And he took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the ashes.
 9Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!"
 10But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

“And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause."  I find these words that God spoke very intriguing.  Always in the past when I thought of Job’s story my version went like this:  Satan went to God and taunted Him to consider taking down His protection so that Satan could do awful things to him and prove that Job would curse God if he wasn’t being blessed. My version is a little scary because if Satan can coerce God to let him hurt Job, why couldn’t he also do that to me?  I had a lot of fear of Satan’s power because of my version of this story.  And consequently I mistrusted God’s goodness and His protection.

Now I see that God is the One who is in complete control of Job’s story.  He said it was He who ruined Job without cause.  He took responsibility for what happened to Job.  Job, on the other hand, did not attribute the things happening to him to anyone other than God.  When his wife wanted him to quit holding onto his integrity and curse God, “he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” I think he realized that he didn’t deserve all the blessings God had poured out on him and he wasn’t taking them for granted.

Where do you stand with this story?  Does it mess with your theology?  Does it make you wonder about God’s goodness and Satan’s power?  Was God only good when good things were happening to Job?  Does Satan have the power to mess with your life?  What do you really believe?  Can you hang in with all the misery and debate about this for 35 more chapters before we hear God’s answer? 

As we move into this story, I am thankful for what I learned from Joseph’s story.  I am thankful for the truths I learned about God at work in his life and how he used really hard stuff to draw Joseph to Himself.  I am thankful for both Job and Joseph’s example of faith in a good God who purposed things in His love.  I want to have that kind of faith.  I want to still praise God in the midst of hard circumstances.  I want to be a person who really knows her God.

We praise You Father for things about Your character that we don’t yet understand.  We praise You that You have the understanding we need.  We praise You that You knew how Job would fare even before you brought those things into his life.  In Your love and according to Your good pleasure, You are at work in our lives.  Cause us to receive everything as it comes from Your heart of love. 


Verna McCrillis, 1/14/2011