Only Good

In Job 1, there is a gathering in heaven before God at the end of which God calls Satan over and says (I'm paraphrasing here), "Hey, have you seen My man, Job? He's really something isn't he?" Satan challenged God. "He's only faithful because You've given him all good stuff." So God allowed Satan to take Job's wealth and his sons (but no harm to Job). And Job said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). So another gathering occurs and God goads Satan a little more. "How about that Job, eh? He's still faithful." "Well," Satan retorted, "he wouldn't be so happy if he didn't have his health." So God let him take his health (but not his life). Sitting in ashes, scraping boils, Job's wife told him to curse God and die. He said, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10). Interesting points here. God pointed Job out to Satan. God allowed Satan to trouble Job. God limited what Satan could and could not do. And in both events, Job rightly ascribed to God his troubles ... and did not complain about God.

I think for more than a few of us it wouldn't be Job's wife that was speaking foolishly; it was Job. I think, in fact, that all of us at some time or another have told God, in essence, that we won't accept "adversity," only good. We'll either ascribe the adversity to someone or something other than God -- and diminish His Sovereignty -- or we'll rightly ascribe it to God and be angry with Him. The reason most of us would do such a thing -- think like Job's wife -- is because we aren't trusting Job's God. Job's God is different. He's a real-life God. Everyone experiences the spectrum, from pain to pleasant, from sorrow to joy, from loss to gain. If your God doesn't go there with you, "large and in charge," as they say, then He's not a real-life God. He's a passenger ... or worse. And more than a few Christians are satisfied with a passenger God who ... oh, no! ... sees our painful circumstances but can do nothing to alleviate them. "So sorry."

The God of the Bible is not afraid of managing both light and darkness, ecstasy and agony. He says, "I am YHWH, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am YHWH who does all these" (Isa 45:6-7). He always does what is right and what is best (Gen 50:20; Psa 100:5; Psa 119:68; 1 John 1:5). If we know this ... if this is the God we are trusting, then, like Job, we can 1) know that God gives well-being and calamity, and 2) it's good. From the hand of God, calamity -- adversity -- is good. We can accept from the hand of God both good and adversity. Not only good.