Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
As I have returned to the the book of Job year after year, I have been struck with the arrogance of his “comforting” friends and have as well soberly contemplated the depth of Job’s despair, etched forever in the pages of the Bible for me to read. I have found both those troubles in my very own heart. The arrogance of offering condescending comfort to someone too glibly, as well as the habit of taking the monster of self-pity into my bosom as a friend. Of the two, my greater failing has always been of thinking too heavily upon my own circumstances and lamenting overly and ending up in the morass of “Woe is me”.As I was asking the Lord to apply what I had read to my heart, I was struck afresh with the deep abiding and underlying faith that undergirded Job; he knew a love that would NOT let him go, while his whole frame - from spirit to body, was groaning in great despair.As I read on..., chapter 23, verses 8 to 12 shone with faith, a deep faith that was bright, in the midst of great darkness, but was his light all the same. Look, I go forward, but He is not there,And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;When He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him;When He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him.But He knows the way that I take;When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.My foot has held fast to His steps;I have kept His way and not turned aside.I have not departed from the commandment of His lips;I have treasured the words of His mouthMore than my necessary food.These are not easy words for a heart to feel, rest in or utter, when all around has given way. He had lost a sense of God’s abiding and comforting presence for the season, he had no knowledge of the coming season, he was crying out to his great and beloved God, but had not received the answer he sought. He looked for a response, God’s response, for the time, was silence! He perceived that he was sinking and did not find the hand of His God drawing him up or out, into safety and light. While his heart was overflowing with sorrow, and the billows of despair were sweeping over him, he did not let go of God and His Word.As a woman who desires to follow the Lord in His calling for my life, as a wife and as a mother, the temptation to self-pity and thinking too highly of my troubles is always with me. It is easy to lament my lot, my unique and unacceptable circumstances. When I find myself thinking thoughts like, "This is too hard, I cannot bear it!" It is the voice of un-faith that is talking. My God, my Maker, the one who set His love upon me from eternity past, is on His throne and bringing all thing to completion in Himself and is orchestrating all my affairs that they work together for my good and His glory! These are truths, uncontested truths, but my view of my circumstances comes in the way of my beholding and living by these truths. So I cry, "I believe, Lord, help my unbelief!"