Choose Love (21 page)

Loving and trusting God means not just praying when you are in a crisis, but as a way of life
.

When something bad happens, deliberately tell yourself to put your hope in God to bring good out of it. Take your eyes off of your situation and look to Him. Don’t give up hope, no matter what the outcome appears to be. Don’t let the enemy’s taunts cause you to doubt God’s Word. Say, “Lord, I surrender my life to You today and everything in it—good or bad—knowing You will bring good out of each situation that is committed to You.”

When we put our expectation in God knowing He is the
only one
we can always depend on, and when we completely trust in Him and wait on Him for help, we show our love for Him.

And in the process of expressing our love for God, we are transformed.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, I put my trust in You. I quiet my soul and wait for You to be my defense, and I will not allow myself to be moved or shaken (Psalm 62:1-2). Reveal any place in my heart where I am afraid to do that fully. Help me to put You first in everything I do—day and night. I pray to You as David did, “Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I will pray. My voice You shall hear in the morning, O L
ORD
; in the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up” (Psalm 5:2-3). Thank You that You hear my prayers and will answer.

Help me to always look to You and not focus on my problems. Teach me to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). My soul waits on You for answers to my prayers, because You are my help and shield (Psalm 33:20). I know that You will strengthen my heart when I put my hope in You (Psalm 31:24). I know there is peace to be found in any trial when I invite Your presence into it. Enable me to keep praying and seeking that peace in You until I have found it.

Lord, I thank You that Your thoughts toward me “are more than can be numbered” (Psalm 40:5). I am constantly grateful that You love me. “Show me Your ways, O L
ORD
; teach me Your paths…on You I wait all the day” (Psalm 25:4-5). I lift my eyes to You for You are my help, and I know that You will not allow me to fall (Psalm 121:1,3). Enable me to put my complete trust in You at all times no matter what is happening.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

I
SAIAH
26:3

Trust in the L
ORD
with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

P
ROVERBS
3:5-6

Give ear, O L
ORD
, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me.

P
SALM
86:6-7

My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved.

P
SALM
62:5-6

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

P
SALM
42:5

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Lean on His Wisdom Enthusiastically

G
od is a good God who loves us. We must never allow the bad things that happen in life to cause us to doubt that and undermine our faith in Him and His infinite wisdom.

When we go through difficult times, if we stay humble before God and wait on Him to reveal His purpose and plan in our situation, it shows we are trusting in His goodness and relying on His infinite wisdom. But when we find ourselves in the middle of something serious in our life and don’t lean on Him, too often that’s because we don’t comprehend how solid and reliable the wisdom of God is.

His wisdom is perfect and worthy of our full trust. That’s because God’s Spirit of wisdom is in us and is perfect and unfailing. We must learn to trust Him more than we do.

We must embrace God’s wisdom and lean on it in every situation, no matter what is happening or how bad things get.

Trust God to Always Do the Right Thing

From the story of Job it’s clear we cannot always understand what God allows or is doing in our life—at least not by our own human thinking. But He is sovereign, all-knowing, and all-powerful, so we can trust Him to do the right thing all the time.

Some people may see the book of Job as only about God’s judgment, but it’s about His mercy. God’s mercy and love for Job is evident in His preservation and restoration of Job’s life. You may think, as I have
, I would rather not go through what Job did and just forego the later blessings.
I wouldn’t want to lose my children even if I were to have more later. But this story is not about whether we would be willing to have all our children killed and lose everything. It’s about whether we would still trust in God and His infinite wisdom if our worst fears came upon us.

It has been my experience, and from my knowledge of God’s Word, that we will have suffering in our lifetime, and it’s far better to trust in the wisdom of God in these times than to blame Him for whatever we have to endure.

God’s love can be found in our suffering as well as our blessings. “You have heard of
the perseverance of Job
and seen the end intended by the Lord—that
the Lord is very compassionate and merciful
” (James 5:11). God was not beating up on Job. His love for Job never wavered, just as His love for
us
never wavers. We must cling to this truth, especially when we are in the deepest pain of our life.

Job’s friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—told Job he was suffering because he had sinned. They said people who sin are punished, so obviously Job was being punished. They thought a person’s material blessings were evidence of God’s favor and punishment was only in
this
life and not beyond their earthly lives. Job’s response to his three friends was anger at them for accusing him instead of comforting him.

Job had not sinned. God said so.

God called Job “a blameless and upright man” (Job 1:8). This proves that we should all be careful about any rush to judgment over the reason for another believer’s suffering.

Another person—Elihu—told Job that God was greater than man, and man did not have the right to question Him or require Him to explain His actions. He said that if we would be humble and listen, God would speak to us. He said Job needed to trust God
in his suffering without requiring an explanation, and he needed to have a humble attitude toward God in the situation.

Job
did
have a humble attitude toward God. God said so.

The truth is, even good people are tested. We each have an
advocate
and an
adversary
.

Jesus is our
advocate.

Satan is our
adversary
.

We battle our adversary by standing with our advocate in prayer.

Job’s suffering was Satan’s idea. God allowed it (Job 2:3-6). Satan first destroyed Job’s possessions and then killed his children, but
Job still worshipped God.
“Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and
he fell to the ground and worshiped
. And he said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The L
ORD
gave, and the L
ORD
has taken away; blessed be the name of the L
ORD
’ ” (Job 1:20-21).

In all that happened Job did not sin. He never faulted God.
He worshipped Him!

Then Satan attacked Job’s body with painful boils.
But Job continued to worship God.
In the midst of his agony, Job did not blame God.

Job’s wife advised, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). But he said to her, “ ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.
Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity
?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10).

Job’s wife lacked understanding or faith in God to bring restoration, so instead of comforting her husband she taunted and disrespected him. But Job did not curse God as Satan predicted he would. Instead, he cursed the day he was born and longed for death.

Job said, “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death, but it does not come?” (Job 3:20-21). He wondered why God didn’t allow him to die as a way to end his agony.

Then Job said words we all pray we will never have cause to say. “My sighing comes before I eat, and my groanings pour out like water.
For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me
” (Job 3:24-25).

The truth for us is that even if our own greatest fear comes upon us, and the very thing we dread happens, God will still make a way through it and bring restoration to us. The key is to trust and not blame God or become angry at Him. If we trust God in His wisdom to always do the right thing, we will be touched by His healing and restorative hand.

When God finally answered Job out of a whirlwind, He did not explain Job’s suffering except to say that Job was not meant to know why. He was to understand that God cared about Job and his life, and that the suffering God allowed brought Job to the end of himself so he could find everything in the Lord.

God reprimanded Job’s friends, saying they didn’t speak the right thing to Job and they had to repent for that. He said to Eliphaz, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has” (Job 42:7). God accepted Job’s faithfulness and instructed him to pray for Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Job 42:8).

It was when Job had
prayed for his faithless friends
that God restored all he had lost—sons and daughters, grandchildren, and possessions. “The L
ORD
gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10). Job had to pray for those who had given bad counsel and caused him more grief.

Job proved that he would not turn away from God in a time of adversity, as Satan said he would, but Job’s suffering was directly from the devil. Before you start getting worried about the devil’s power to destroy, remember that Jesus defeated Satan and all the powers of hell. At the mention of Jesus’ name, and the knowledge that you are now in Christ, the enemy has to flee. The key is recognizing the enemy’s attack and resisting his lies and temptations.

When the suffering was over, all of Job’s brothers, sisters, and
acquaintances came and ate with him in his house and comforted him. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, and he had seven sons and three daughters, exactly what he had lost before (Job 42:10-13). Job lived 140 years and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations (42:16). God gave Job a wonderful and abundant life of total restoration.

The love of God is powerfully shown in Job’s amazing story. Job thought his life was over and he looked forward to dying, but God had abundant life ahead for him. Job’s love of God caused him to not turn away from God but toward Him, trusting in His wisdom.

Could you or I have trusted God after losing all of our children, all of our possessions, and our health? Yes, we could, but only if we had total love and trust for God’s unfailing love, compassionate mercy, and infinite wisdom. If God in His wisdom, understanding, and knowledge founded the earth and the heavens, He can sustain us through anything if we continue to worship Him and not fault Him, love Him and not blame Him, and lean on His wisdom and not the wisdom of the world (Proverbs 3:19-20).

Reverence for God Is Where Our Wisdom Begins

There are two different kinds of wisdom. There is the
wisdom of the world
and the
wisdom of God
. We need to keep the distinction between the two perfectly clear in our mind at all times.

God’s wisdom is the opposite of the world’s. For example, the message of Jesus’ suffering on the cross and His miraculous resurrection seems foolish to unbelievers, but to those of us who have been saved by what Jesus accomplished on the cross, we see it as the very power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18). God says that He “will destroy the wisdom of the wise” because the wisdom of this world does not know Him (1 Corinthians 1:19-21). Jesus is both the
power
of God
and
the
wisdom
of God, and that is why the world does not recognize Him. Earthly wisdom will come to nothing, but godly wisdom lasts forever.