Wednesday May 18, 2011

When you think of Job in the Old Testament, what comes to your mind? A man who had a lot of sorrow in his life? A man who lost all of his children due to a tornado hitting the house where they they were all together celebrating? A man who lost all of his sheep? His camels? His servants? A man with sores all over his body? A man whose friends didn’t recognize him? A man whose friends came to support him in his sorrow and sat with him for seven days without saying a word? A man whose wife after seeing all these things said to him, “Curse God and die.”? You are right that all these things happened to Job. I tend to focus on the negative things that happened to Job and not look at the apex of the book of Job. There are several themes in the book of Job, but the one that sticks out for me involves how we respond to trials when they come our way. Our response to these trials begin to create qualities in our life that God is aware of. It was God who started the conversation with satan when God attributed four qualities to Job.

The first quality the Lord attributed to Job was being blameless. “Then the lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless. . . ..'” (Job 1:8). I have heard that being blameless is being above reproach, living a live that is free from sin. David in the Psalms said this, “I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.”(Psalms 18:23). In keeping away from sin, David saw himself as blameless. It is a life of attitudes and actions that are pleasing to God. No one can point a finger at us in our actions, behaviors, or attitudes and criticize us. A life above reproach.

Solomon gave some input to this quality of being blameless when he said, “The way of the lord is a refuge for the blameless, but it is the ruin of those who do evil.” (Proverbs 10:29). Doing evil is the opposite of being blameless. Being blameless involves choices we make every day in the way we handle our affairs. We have a choice in how we act at work with co-workers. We have a choice in how we communicate with our spouse. We have a choice in how we talk with our children. We have a choice in how we respond to someone who accuses us of doing or saying something wrong. In other words, we have control of being blameless or doing evil. Blameless is in our hands each and every minute we live here on this earth. God attributed the quality of being blameless to Job, a man of great self-control.

On this journey there are many forks in the road to choose to do evil or to be blameless. Choose wisely.