Daily Verse Devo - Job 2:3

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. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause.”

-Job 2:3 (NLT)

The story of Job has some interesting elements. First, the devil came to the Lord when the angels presented themselves. He had just finished roaming the earth. That in itself is a scary thought!

The devil basically said that Job feared God because he had been blessed with much. He begged God to take it all away, as a test to see if Job would still serve God.

In Job 1, all of his children die and several other calamities happen where there was only one servant who escaped to tell him. Yet, through all of this, Job never sinned. Later on in chapter 2, Job's wife tells him to curse God and die. Job rebukes her and says that if we will receive blessings from God, shall we not have suffering as well?

Instead of blaming God for all the suffering he endured, he praised God. I really love the description of Job presented in Job 2:3 - the finest man on earth, blameless, complete integrity, fears God, stays away from evil.

I think Job is a godly role model that we should all try to follow. It's so easy to dwell in pity or complain about our situation. It's difficult to praise God and see the good.

But, I want someday for God to say of me what he said of Job. Maybe not verbatim, but to resemble the concept of being blameless and having integrity.

Have you ever been in a horrible situation and on the other side of it, you saw how God was using it for good?

Years ago, our rabbits were blessed with three baby bunnies. We enjoyed playing and snuggling with them. They brought so much joy and happiness and were the cutest in the world. When they all turned three months old, it was time for them to get their own cages. They were getting too big to stay with their mommy.

Shortly after this, I was feeding the bunnies one summer morning. They lived in the garage, but during the day we would put them out on the garage patio inside their houses so they could get some fresh air.

I had just gone inside when I heard deep barking. I looked outside and there was this massive St. Bernard running right toward them.

I screamed and my mom and I went out. I remember my mom was trying to hold off the giant dog with a push broom while I put the bunnies back in the garage for safety.

In the process, one of the babies, Bubba, broke his back. That dog brutally took him out of his cage and finished him off.

That was the most traumatic experience I'd ever been through. My mom was just glad that I had gone inside when I had. The dog completely knocked over the chair I'd been sitting in, and I could have been severely injured. I didn't really care about that in the moment. I was just so upset that this dog had ruined the happy family we had.

Finally, an animal control officer came. Apparently the dog was an ex-convict, because he tried to run away the moment the officer came. This dog belonged to none of our neighbors. In that moment, I thought he came straight from hell. Who knows?

In the midst of that turmoil, I saw nothing but the pain. Afterwards, I realized a few things. Max, the dad bunny, had a huge dent in his cage. The dog was definitely trying to hurt him, but thankfully did not.

Another of the babies, Sophie, wouldn't drink her water and lost a lot of weight. We finally realized that her neck was slightly injured and replaced her bottle with a water bowl. Thankfully, she did just fine after that. Little Sophie was so full of joy and love for others. For a couple of years, we took her to nursing homes and she would visit with people there and encourage them.

So even though we went through a lot of tragedy, God brought joy in the midst of it. Life doesn't always go as we expect, but God has a perfect plan. Like Job, our response can be filled with praise.

#praise #suffering #job