What would we do without Job?

I have 41 "drafts" in my box... I think I've only actually posted like 15.


Ronda is having me read this book that's called "Trusting God Again". It takes the story of Job and stories of peoples lives today and compares them. It talks about losing things, and grief, getting through it, and trusting God in the end. Hence, the title.

So far the writer (or writers because it's written by two people) is smart, but not really a writer. He uses a lot of bad analogies and pointless adjectives. Sometimes I get caught by the bad writing and have a hard time appreciating what he's saying.

So far it's just making me want to read the book of Job, which isn't a bad thing. I think I'm going to do it..

I realize that there's been a lot in my past that's happened, that makes me able to relate with a lot of different people. I think that is why Job is so important. Almost every bad thing you could possibly imagine happened to Job, and all in one day. You see his battle and his journey with healing and trusting God again. You see how hard it is, and how he came through it anyways. Now anytime something hard happens in our lives we can look at the bible, we can look at Job, and we can relate. You may wonder why all of this happened to Job, and why this is all happening to you, but now I wonder what would we do now if it had never happened to Job? What would we do if Job's life remained perfect, and our lives didn't?

Even now, more than 2,000 years later, his trials and tribulations are still affecting peoples lives today. They're helping people cope, and deal with, and get over. His trials help hard times make more sense, they show that even in the worst of times there is still the opportunity to trust God again. That God is still a good God.

His friends said that there must be unconfessed sin in his life or God wouldn't of let it happen to him. After a while they no longer sympathized with him, but they blamed him. And Job must of wondered what he did to deserve it all as well. Why was it happening to him?

I think that this falls under the "everything happens for a reason" idea, and the fact that God will work everything for good. I think that God let it happen to Job, because He knew that Job could handle it. And even though it took Job some 40 odd chapters to get through it all, he still got through it. In the end, one mans greatest hardship affected thousands of other people.

I think that surrendering ourselves to God is one of the scariest things we could ever do... what if we end up like Job? But even though it's scary, it must be the absolute best thing that we could do.

I hate hard times. I hate feeling like I need help and like I'm always on the verge of tears, or like I'm losing control. I know that out of these times comes the most growth I can experience, and yet I dread them.

But I also know that with each pain I feel, my heart becomes a little deeper, and in the end my life becomes a little richer. I know that because of all the stuff that I've experienced I can relate to so many people, and I think that when we realize that, it all starts to make a little more sense. That in some small way, I'm like Job and my hardships are affecting the people around me.

It's about letting go of ourselves and being selfless. Which in so many ways doesn't seem like a good idea. It's about helping others instead of helping ourselves.

I think if we embraced this, the hard times wouldn't be as hard, and being "let down" or hurt wouldn't be as scary.

It's weird. We can never stop bad things from happening, no matter how hard we try. And trying to protect and shield ourselves seems like the best thing to do, when really it's probably the worst.

I don't know if this makes sense, and I don't have effort to say anymore, but I'll post it anyways because I haven't posted in a long time.