Raw Reality

Job 3:1–26

If Job’s story were made into a movie and your family had rented it for tonight, when you came to this part of the story you’d fast-forward; you wouldn’t want your children to watch. It’s not only unedited, it’s raw and borderline heretical!

Some of it is downright offensive. We don’t want to think a man as great as Job in chapters 1 and 2 is the same man you meet in chapter 3. We just don’t want to believe it. Why? Partly because we have this skewed idea that anybody who walks this closely with God lives happily ever after. After all, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Right? If you didn’t know better, you could think you might sprout wings before your conversion is a week old and start to soar through life.

We need to understand that God’s “wonderful plan” is wonderful from His perspective, not yours and mine. To us, “wonderful” means comfortable, healthy, all bills paid, no debt, never sick, happily married with two well-behaved children, a fulfilling, well-paying job, and the anticipation of nothing but blessing and success and prosperity forever. That’s “wonderful” to us. But God’s wonderful plan is not like that.

Job brings us back to raw reality—God’s kind of reality. Remember his question, the one he asked his wife? “Shall we accept good from God and not accept adversity?” And remember that closing line? “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10).

The same man soon steps into a whole new frame of reference. That’s why Job 3 makes us uneasy. We don’t want our hero to think or talk as he does here. He doesn’t seem as if he’s a man of God anymore. He even has the audacity to say at the end, “I am not at ease. I am not quiet. I am not at rest. I am in turmoil.” What has happened? We’re given entrance into a dark side of Job’s life that is as real as any of our lives today, but the difference is, Job lets it all out. Thankfully, he reminds us that even the godly can be depressed.

Have you ever been seriously depressed? God is still there.

Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. www.thomasnelson.com

Posted in Encouragement & Healing and tagged .

Pastor Charles R. Swindoll has devoted his life to the accurate, practical teaching and application of God’s Word. He is the founding pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, but Chuck’s listening audience extends far beyond a local church body. As a leading programme in Christian broadcasting since 1979, Insight for Living airs around the world. Chuck’s leadership as president and now chancellor emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary has helped prepare and equip a new generation of men and women for ministry.

పాస్టర్ చార్లెస్ ఆర్. స్విండాల్ దేవుని వాక్యాన్ని నిర్దిష్టంగా, ఆచరణాత్మకంగా బోధించడానికి మరియు అన్వయించడానికి తన జీవితాన్ని అంకితం చేశారు. ఆయన టెక్సాస్‌లోని ఫ్రిస్కోలోని స్టోన్‌బ్రయర్ కమ్యూనిటీ చర్చి వ్యవస్థాపక కాపరియై ఉన్నారు, అయితే చక్ యొక్క శ్రోతలు స్థానిక సంఘ పరిధి దాటి వ్యాపించి ఉన్నారు. 1979 నుండి క్రైస్తవ ప్రసరణలో ప్రముఖ కార్యక్రమంగా, ఇన్‌సైట్ ఫర్ లివింగ్ ప్రపంచవ్యాప్తంగా ప్రసారమవుతోంది. డల్లాస్ థియోలాజికల్ సెమినరీకి ప్రెసిడెంటుగా, అలాగే ఇప్పుడు ఛాన్సిలర్ ఎమెరిటస్‌గా చక్ యొక్క నాయకత్వం క్రొత్త తరం స్త్రీపురుషులను పరిచర్య కొరకు సిద్ధపరచడంలో సహాయపడింది.