A Life Like Job's

Sometimes I wish my life were more like Job's. Sure, he had some heavy duty problems, but his attitude toward God guaranteed that his troubles did not destroy him or his reverence for his heavenly Father.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21b (KJV) was his immediate response to the news that all his children had been killed in a disaster. It is a statement of thankfulness, in a way.

"God gave those wonderful children to me even though I did nothing to deserve such a gift,"  Job seems to say. "How wonderful were my days with my children. Now God has taken them home to be with Him as is His right, but no one can take from me the joy and remembrances I have of them all."

Granted, I am not going through the loss of a loved one at present, and cannot even imagine the searing grief that cuts parents' to the quick when they lose a child. I don't ever want that pain, but I admire Job's response. "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither." Job 1:.21a (KJV) Anything in between birth and death is, to Job, a gift.

I want, like Job, to be able to regard everything in my life to be a pure and undeserved blessing: a gift of love from the Lover of my soul. That attitude would restrain my sense of entitlement. It would also serve to keep me from nursing feelings of envy, jealously, covetousness, and discontent.

My sinful heart longs for the "life of Riley", but my soul's desire is for the spiritual "life of Job".

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." James 1:17a (NIV)