He was the greatest of all the people of the east.
7 sons. 3 daughters. 7,000 sheep. 3,000 camels. 500 yoke of oxen. 500 female donkeys. Very many servants.
And he lost it all in a single day.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. (Job 1:20-22)
How? How do you lose so much and respond with worship? Where do you find it within yourself to bless the LORD in the face of such devastation? What sort of anchor keeps you from knee-jerk sin in the midst of such a bitter storm?
In order to understand the “How?” in the wake of the disasters, we have to appreciate who Job was before the disasters.
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. (Job 1:1)
It didn’t take the loss of very many servants to get Job thinking about life the way it was meant to be. It didn’t take the loss of thousands of livestock to motivate Job to walk the path of righteousness. It didn’t take the loss of ten children to convince Job to slow down and build a relationship with God. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on Job to a near-unimaginable extent, but he did not fall. “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” Why? How? He had built his life on the rock before his greatest test began.
It makes me wonder, if there was a book of the Bible that bore my name, what would Chapter 1, Verse 1 say?