His Divine Purpose At Work

When I first started seeing deeper spiritual truths, I learned so much in so short of a time, that I became concerned that too much of it was just head knowledge. I was driving home from work one day when I brought it before the Lord. I had a picture in my head of a stick man with a big head on it walking around. Then the Lord changed the picture in my head by showing me the same stick man, only this time carrying a big heart on its chest, and He said to me, "just make sure your heart grows bigger than your head!" I am not sure I have always succeeded. I struggle with my natural man as much as the next guy. I am so very thankful that I have been given such a gift of faith, and of understanding, but even with all of that, there are still times when I am left wondering what God's plan is in such difficult situations. Times when I would try hard to do a good job, and then something messes up, and it takes the wind out of your sails! I still get a panicky feeling sometimes when everything seems to be going great, that something is going to happen to ruin it, and that I am being set up for a struggle to have to tackle. And it is one thing to know even within the core of your being that God is all loving, and that He will not give you more of a burden than you are able to handle. Not only that, but knowing that each trial is measured perfectly to grow us up into mature Son's of God. It is another thing to go through something that just seems senseless at the time! Those are the hardest struggles to deal with, the ones that don't seem to have any rhyme or reason! And I do mean that it may not seem like there is a reason. Of course I know enough to know that there is one; and even moreso considering that I have some 35 years of "Human Journey" walking with the Lord experience! Even after all of that, we still need the fellowship of other believers that we can encourage one another in the Lord. I had an experience a couple of years ago where the tractor trailer I was driving for my job took down a tree branch that was hanging too low, and fell on a car, without my knowing about it. The police stopped me a few blocks away, and I got charged with failing to remain at the scene of an accident. Had the charge stuck, I would have lost my CDL, my job, and my career! For several weeks, I did not know what the results would be, and I had no assurance in my Spirit, that the best outcome would take place. I lost a lot of sleep for weeks. I went to a lawyer, but was not assured of a positive outcome. During that same time, I reached out to a group of friends on a message board, and was encouraged by their support and understanding. Finally, the lawyer arranged to have the charge changed to a non traffic offense, which still cost me a big fine, plus his fees, however, my lively hood was not in peril anymore. The torment of any difficulty comes when there does not seem to be any reason for it. Or when there is no good that can be apparent coming from it. There is not much consolation of grief when what caused so much pain seems senseless! It is that time when you have to cry out to God and ask WHY?! All you want to know is WHY? Just explain to me why, and I can handle much more tragedy if there is something positive that comes from it, or if I know, not that if God has a good reason, but I need to know more about what that good reason is. And that is one of the places where we find Job. That is one of the places where we can relate to the problem of suffering. That is one of the places where we might even compare our suffereing to Job's and see how we measure up. After all of the tragic events happened where he lost everything one after the other all in the same day; all that he owned, and his servants, and sons and daughters; even after all of that great unexpected loss; verse 22 of chapt. 1 still says "and in all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." That is something hard to compare yourself to. Here I was in a panic over the potential to lose everything, and Job had just gotten the news that he DID lose everything, and even then he did not charge God foolishly! He did not shake his fist in the air; he did not scream and shout and curse at God, and accuse Him of not caring, instead it says " 1:20 "Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshiped, 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." Okay, so as if that were not enough, it was not long after that he was struck with boils from his head to his feet over his whole body, and still even when his wife (perhaps out of compassion) tells him to curse God and die, and yet: "In all this did not Job sin with his lips. " (2:10c). There is so much even to this point to speak about, it is hard to know where to start and what to leave out. But since I know I began to write about Job with a purpose in mind, and I have not touched on that purpose yet, I will focus on that in another post. What I do know is that it takes me an average of two hours to write each post so far. That is without a lot of changes being made to what I type initially. What has surprised me the most so far is that I have even had the time available to write these posts. Up until this past week, I have worked several hours overtime per week for more than a year. That is one reason why I have put off starting a blog, because many nights I would be home for just a couple of hours before I would need to go to bed. Plus with now learning to fly, much of the rest of my waking and some of my sleeping time is occupied with that! However, this past week, I have put in the first 40 hr week in a long long time, and I am convinced beyond a doubt that not only in the story of Job, but also in the existence of this blog, and even in the fact that you are reading it that His Divine Purpose is at work .