by Max Hammonds
In Ezekiel 14:14, three men are mentioned as having “righteousness:” Daniel, Noah, and Job. Further in Job 1, the description of Job’s righteous lifestyle is laid out in minute detail: every prayer, every generous impulse, every concern for the welfare of his family and many others who crossed his path. By the standards of his day – and ours – Job was a righteous man so far as mankind can achieve it.
Therefore, Job was not expecting trouble. Job was not inviting trouble. Nevertheless, trouble found him. Within one day (or so it would seem in Job 1) Job’s world collapsed, touching his life in every direction, challenging his faith to the utmost. Job’s response (to the calamities caused by the enemy within the parameters set by God) was a statement of profound faith: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” His response was the sigh of a grateful heart – for the blessings received and the blessings taken away. Job accepted the Lord as the source and final arbiter of blessings.
A faithful heart is not the occasional, momentary appreciation of a beautiful sunrise nor the grateful reception of good news about an unsolved situation. A faithful heart is an attitude that recognizes God as always having “plans for [our] welfare and not for calamity to give [us] a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11) despite the appearance of immediate circumstances. A faithful heart is not a Pollyanna worldview in multiple shades of rose; it is a worldview of a reality beyond the immediate situation to a confidence in God’s promise to “not leave [us] or forsake [us]” (Joshua 1:5).
A faithful heart is a passionate expression of trust in the God who loves us and compassionately cares for us – in all circumstances. That’s why God calls us to “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18).
Job was experiencing the most profound, abjectly horrific circumstances. Yet his faith did not waver. He maintained his worldview of trust in God. Then the came the second blow from the enemy – physical pain and suffering. Then the third blow (also from the enemy as the voices of good-intentioned friends can sometimes be): blame heaped upon Job as the probable cause of his own losses.
Job complained. He wanted to discuss his situation with God, to go to court with God to express how what was happening to him was totally unfair – to which God did not immediately respond. He argued with his friends about his guiltlessness, rejecting all sense of reasonableness in his situation.
Job was not patient. Job was anything but patient. But his heart was faithful. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15). Job walked with God “by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). His faithful heart clung to the God he could not see, despite his circumstances in the world he could see.
The first five weeks of this year are gone. The New Year’s resolutions have been forgotten. The “peace and joy” of the holidays have collided with the stone-cold realities of work assignments, home responsibilities, health issues, and the uncontrollable, increasing calamities – the world as we see it. How do we deal with the world of our realities? How do we find – like Job – the faith to cling to the God we cannot see?
The moral processing center of the human mind is “the heart,” that place where God placed our basic moral value system – the choice to love and care for others vs. to love and care for ourselves (Micah 6:8 vs. 1 John 2:15). Each individual choice weakens or strengthens our “heart” to consistently choose to love and care for others. Each choice develops into thoughts and ideas that play out as actions.
If left to our own strength, our hearts will gradually weaken and shift to love and care for ourselves, despite our best efforts (Matt. 15:18, 19). But if we choose to follow God – as Job did – every day, by the power of the Holy Spirit (Ezek. 36:26, 27) our hearts will follow His choices and strengthen our resolve. These repeated choices and strengthening resolve coalesce into a “worldview” based on trust in God and His method and played out as love to God and love to our fellow man (Matt. 22:37-40).
This worldview based on trust in God can withstand any temptation, any looming problem, any calamity of life. Like Job, we might not understand, we might not agree, we might complain or weep or argue. But we never vary from a complete trust in the God who holds us in our pain, leads us in our uncertainties, and never allows “temptation beyond what [we] are able” (1 Cor. 10:13). Like Job, we will have a faithful heart.
