For most of
this year, we’ve lived and died with COVID-19, with unrest and destruction in our
cities, with tension all around us as a nation and world. Our secure lifestyles, employment, health,
education, happiness and so many other things that contributed to the ‘good
life’ we enjoyed have been compromised!
As people of faith, believing in a generous, loving God, we should ask,
how likely would we be to echo Job’s statement of faith in the wake of this
changed and changing lifestyle today?
In the Book
of Job, there’s an encounter between the Lord and Satan (Job 1:6-22). God was confident and proud of His servant
Job, his faithfulness and lived faith.
Satan was complaining that the only reason Job was so faithful was because
the Lord had given him everything one could ever hope for; healthy children,
prosperous crops, ample livestock, all of which made Job a very wealthy and
happy man. Satan believed that Job would
renounce God if the tide turned and Job lost everything! God told Satan to go ahead and reign down
tragedy on all the things Job possessed and see for himself the outcome. Satan took the bait and set about
systematically destroying all of Job’s livestock, workers and even his
children! He stopped short of taking
Job’s life as God told him not to harm Job.
Job lost all
his possessions and his family, but he never lost his faith in the love and
generosity of our loving God! Job could
have easily been so attached to his wealth and possessions that he would turn
his back on God and God’s generosity.
Instead, as the faithful servant he was, he was able to proclaim, “The
LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD!”
In many
respects, these past months have brought an awareness of just how blessed we
are! For many of us we enjoy a very
privileged life albeit, one we take for granted at times. Sometimes it seems that we’ve forgotten our
sisters and brothers who have so little!
It’s so easy to allow our precious ‘things’ to consume us!
It’s time to
focus less on our wants and more on the needs of others. We’re so preoccupied at times with
complaining how inconvenient this pandemic is and longing for everything to get
back to ‘normal’. It’s not too late to
buck up, wear our masks, social distance from others, observe the protocols in
place in our churches, schools, cities and neighborhoods with less grumbling
and dissent. Yes, it’s been a long seven
months and Yes, we want to gather again in large groups to eat, pray, to laugh
and cry. We want to be able to minister
to our sick friends and family in person rather than outside their hospital
room or home. We’re tired of ZOOM and
want to be together in-person, we want to have the freedom to vacation in far
off lands or gather with neighbors for a backyard BBQ.
If we just
open our eyes, we can see that the ‘new normal’ has so many graced moments! The generosity, creativity, tenacity, care, and
concern for each other by young and old is truly a blessing. Educators, pastoral workers, government
officials, health care agencies, and many families are working together to
provide relief where needed.
May we
continue to be people of hope and echo the words of the prophet Job, “The
LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD!”
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