Job 1:6-12

6 One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them. 7 “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan.

Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”

8 Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”

9 Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. 10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! 11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”

12 “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.

In no way am I comparing my life experiences to that of Job’s. He suffered great loss and grief that I can’t even imagine however, his story profoundly illustrates his faith in God and even in his darkest hour and lowest point he remained faithful.

Have you ever found yourself in a place where everything seems to be going wrong all at once? Or you see the troubles piling up and no matter what you try to do to stay ahead or to avoid the inevitable avalanche of troubles you just can’t? There are times in our lives when we are doing our very best to live for God. We’re praying, reading the Bible, and meditating on God and His word daily, but in the midst of it all, at the very peak of our faithfulness and diligence we find ourselves being tested…

I found myself in this place of testing just recently. On one hand I’m doing all I can to stay afloat, doing everything I’m supposed to but I just couldn’t keep my head above water.  I’m praying and believing God for a miracle. I tried to work my situation out with the proper people and they said, “it’s a done deal”. I  didn’t sweat it too much at the time I went on about my weekend without worry for the most part. It wasn’t until I finally had a moment to sit down and listen to a preacher who was talking about the Will of God, and that “It Shall Prevail.” She talked about the early years of David and how he was anointed by Samuel to be king. Even though he had greatness assigned to his life he went back to tending the sheep and how his life experiences groomed and prepared him to be king. She continued to minister and at one point she said “it’s a done deal…” and those words rang out in my memory with such clarity and understanding, the little light bulb in my head became supercharged and all I could do was cry as I surrendered to God’s will.

Those words also reminded me of Job’s story and how God allowed the enemy to do his worst to Job because he knew Job would remain steadfast. But not only that, God also knew that this experience would groom Job to become even more faithful than before.

I had to come to terms that this was the Will of God and I had to go through the process. It was uncomfortable; I lost some things that I thought was valuable. I thought my name would be tarnished because of it. I even thought that this would affect my future endeavours but God covered me in my going through. I found favor in the midst of this trial, and unexpected doors opened for me that blessed me to walk into a greater place and now I’m looking forward to what else God has in store for me.

I have to also mention that during this process some things in me had to be broken. I had to admit to and let go of pride I never thought I had. I had to learn to ask for help and realize I don’t have to do things on my own. Somehow, through the years I had an insane idea that everything I do in life has to be done by my own blood, sweat and tears. I think part of it was because I’ve always wanted to be independent from my high school years up until this event. The need for independence became pride and pride started to become a place of isolation and when we start to isolate ourselves from others it can lead to an ocean of other issues and traps.

When we find ourselves in a place where all avenues are cut off, and all of our natural or man-made efforts aren’t working, it’s a blatant give away to just surrender to the Will of God. HE is truly checking to see that when we say “Lord, have Your way”, we really mean it. We may not like the process he takes us through but it’s for our making and one day we will need to recall these experiences to our minds; God has brought us through before and he’ll definitely do it again.