Bible in a Year… Day 81

Back to Job today, again with a bit of catch-up to do.

Job 21:7-13 (NIV)
⁷Why do the wicked live on,
    growing old and increasing in power?

⁸They see their children established around them,
    their offspring before their eyes.

⁹Their homes are safe and free from fear;
    the rod of God is not upon them.

¹⁰Their bulls never fail to breed;
    their cows calve and do not miscarry.

¹¹They send forth their children as a flock;
    their little ones dance about.

¹²They sing to the music of tambourine and harp;
    they make merry to the sound of the flute.

¹³They spend their years in prosperity
    and go down to the grave in peace.

Job 21:17-18 (NIV)
¹⁷“Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?
    How often does calamity come upon them,
    the fate God allots in his anger?

¹⁸How often are they like straw before the wind,
    like chaff swept away by a gale?

Job asks questions we all do from time to time here… why do evil people prosper? Why doesn’t God intervene?

Like Job, I don’t know that I really have an answer, but I will say this… if you think following Christ is all about prospering financially or going through life without pain or difficulty, you’re sorely mistaken about the reason He died for us. The prosperity gospel (despite it’s popularity), is simply off-base Biblically.

The simple fact is that we cannot know the mind of God. We cannot know why He allows certain things to happen… be it why you sometimes find those who reject Him prospering, why His most devoted servants sometimes have lives of extreme difficulty, or even simply why bad things sometimes come our way. God is sovereign… He’s God… He does as He pleases and allows what He chooses to allow.

We don’t have to know WHY… we just have to know that we need to trust Him and follow Him. It’s a tall order, knowing that good things aren’t guaranteed for us here on earth… but easier when we really know Him.

Truth be told, growing our relationship with God that we might KNOW that He is good (not only in theory, or simply intellectually… but really KNOW with every fiber of our being)… that’s what gets us through this life and keeps us on a path that continually runs toward Him.

No biggie, right?

(Don’t we wish!)