God's Children Are Never His Enemy [Job 16]

    11"God hands me over to ruffians
         And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.
    12"I was at ease, but He shattered me,
         And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces;
         He has also set me up as His target.

In this chapter, Job imagined that God was his enemy. It makes sense that he would come to this conclusion because that was what it looked and felt like to him sitting in the ditch with sores all over his body with his sorry comforters. However, Job was wrong. In the beginning of the book we saw what God had to say about Job. God pointed him out as a righteous man to Satan. God who knows all, gave Satan permission to torment Job, but not to kill him. God's Sovereignty over the situation was absolute, but His righteous and good motives were not clear to Job as the sufferer, to his friends, or even to us as the readers.

Job did not have access to the complete revelation of God in the Scripture and so he did not know God as we can know Him now. He probably had enough information to know that God was not His enemy, but was speaking out of his fleshly feelings in chapter 16.  That's pretty normal for anyone in a devastating crisis. However, we are in a much better place to go through something like this resting in the arms of the God of love if we surround ourselves with people who know and trust the God of the Bible and we take time daily to spend time with Him in the Word and prayer. Then, when the crisis comes, which it will, we will be equipped to go through it embracing God and trusting Him to be on our side even if our feelings tell us differently (and they will!).

It felt like God handed me over to ruffians several times during the past two weeks. Nothing huge or devastating happened, but I had big enough emotional blows to feel like the wind was being knocked out of me time after time. It's amazing how quickly I focused on my feelings and forgot to focus on God. However, I am realizing that no matter how long I have walked as closely as I am able with God, in painful times my focus will always gravitate to the source of the pain. It's a built in response and completely normal. Instead of kicking myself for the self focus (thinking I should more mature by now), I take it to My Heavenly Daddy and whine at Him and receive His affirmation concerning my feelings and situation. He loves me and understands and is happy to comfort me in those times. And then I have the awesome privilege to work it all out with Him.

This past week, for example, on Sunday morning after church, I had some quiet alone time and I used the 9 Steps for Dealing With Conflict* at least twice for two different things and the Dealing With Emotions God's Way* chart for one other thing. When I was done, I got up and started doing something and realized there was still another issue bothering me. I went back to my quiet place and worked through another chart and finally had peace. The bottom line was that God put me through those situations for my good to teach me some valuable lessons. Not only do I have peace, but I am grateful to see that He is growing me in His grace through it all. That is what God wants for every one of us, to see the pain as a call to intimacy with Him, to spend time with Him and to grow in grace through it all. 

We praise You, God, that you are never our enemy even when our thoughts and feelings tell us You are. Cause us to run to You for affirmation, comfort, wisdom and grace in times of pain.
*These charts are free downloads at www.egpministries.com, go to resources and then tools for a list of the charts available.
Beth Warlick, 1/25/2011