Passage of the Day: Job 24 … Linked for study …
My Journal for Today: Job 24 is an interesting example of our human need to explain things. As sinners going through this life, we see all that is wrong, … all the perversity, … all the bad things happening to what we perceive as good people, … all the darkness descending upon the earth; and a lot of the time we are not privileged to the other side, God’s view of things. It’s so frustrating; and it could lead to hopelessness.
And in Chapter 24, Job is simply voicing a lot of his “What’s happening, Lord?” questions. And there’s nothing wrong with one of God’s children going to God with the frustrations of our lives, expressing our anguish to our Lord. BUT (again, the contrast word!), note the end of this chapter, where Job begins to come back into focus, seeing and expressing that no matter what may seem ugly on our side, God has a design for everything which will one day be completed; and we’ll see that He was creating a beautiful tapestry for us all to enjoy.
And that’s the word picture which Chuck Swindoll reminds his readers (like me) to attempt to see. When a tapestry artist weaves a tapestry to hang on the wall, beautifully illustrating some aspect of life, there are two sides of the tapestry. If you look at the back side, the colored threads are all gnarled and twisted by the artist; and they seem like a bizarre mess to our view. BUT, when we’re allowed to see what the artist is trying to represent by weaving all that backside together; … when we are privileged to see the artistry which has unfolded to be hung for all to see, those same threads, which were a distorted mess on the backside, become a beautiful picture on the front side. And that’s the way life often is to us. We see the backside, while God is weaving the front side. And we may go all the way through life not being able to see God’s intent and what He’s weaving together for us to see in heaven.
But Job closes with the reality of what Paul wrote about in Romans 8: 28, which I certainly hope you know by heart now. God is weaving all things together for our good – for our beauty; BUT we’ve got to trust that He’s doing just that; because what we see very often is the backside of His tapestry. And Job expresses this in Chapter 24, saying that we may not be able to see or explain the workings of God; and we will either trust His work for our good or we will live our lives in frustration, not being able to explain what God is doing.
My brothers or sisters in Christ, thus far in life I’m learning to trust my God’s work. I see all this mess around me; and I see, as you do, all the violence, all the abortions, all the corruption, all the greed, all the … [well, you fill in the blanks with your frustration]; and I’m learning to see that God is still in control. Oh, I come to God with my frustrations, just as Job is doing in Chapter 24; but ultimately I come to see that I’m still looking at the backside of God’s tapestry; and I trust that one day I’m going to see the beauty He is weaving for His glory.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, just give me glimpses of Your glory not and again so that I can hold onto the hope that I have in You, Lord, … in the midst of all the ugliness of this life. Amen
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