The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away

Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

Job 2:9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
Job 2:10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Job 40:1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
Job 40:2 Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.
Job 40:3 Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
Job 40:4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Job 40:5 Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.

Job 42:6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

The LORD gives.
The LORD takes.
Blessed be the name of the LORD.

We receive GOOD at the hand of God.
We receive EVIL at the hand of God- He allows evil to befall us.

We are VILE.
We ABHOR ourselves.

We MUST repent.

God's ways are past our finding them out. When we look at our world and all the horrors that are allowed to happen, Satan wants us to curse God for it all as we try to comprehend it all, thinking that we really do have a way of understanding- when in truth we don't. The horrors, and they are many and unimaginable in their vileness, exist and even the INNOCENT are made to endure them. People love to throw this up high in the air to top their list of reasons why they don't want to believe in a God who allows such agonizing horror. The worse the reprehensible act the more convinced they become that they do NOT want to believe in a God who sits back and watches as the terror unfolds. As tears falls, as gut wrenching sorrow doubles them over for the tragedies occurring around every corner people would rather believe there is no God than believe there is a God who has the power to stop the awfulness, yet does not.

The thing is- our God is MERCIFUL- the horrors, no matter how vile and no matter how long those horrors must be endure- they do eventually end. A God who would allow endless torture, would be a God I could not imagine. All this world's sorrows are TEMPORARY to ETERNITY.

If we spend an entire lifetime- from birth to old age-80, 90 years in pain- we have to take comfort knowing there is an end, a stopping point.

We cannot begin to comprehend why people are put through horrors unimaginable, we simply can't. For that matter we can't comprehend the reality we call life -much at all- no matter how long scientists and the great minds that exist over the ages try to define it all.

If God were a man who had MAGICAL powers upon earth and then he allowed evil to exist- then we could comprehend. But GOD is NOT a man and NEVER will be a man- He is the CREATOR of MAN, He can never be what HE'S CREATED any more than an architect could become a house, a gardener become a flower garden, a doctor a cure. It's IMPOSSIBLE. God did become man in JESUS CHRIST- God taking on flesh and feeling our infirmities completely- but God did NOT cease being GOD in order to become human. The FATHER GOD has forever been God without human flesh. GOD the SON took on the very flesh He'd had a hand in creating and while He laid aside HIS powers and relied upon God the FATHER'S there was never a moment when the power of GOD the Father was gone, NEVER.

From everlasting to everlasting God exists and will forever exist and THIS we cannot fully comprehend in our humanity, in our seemingly finite, our possibly finite, existence.

Job was a righteous man- even God said so.
Yet Job's righteousness became corrupted as He was tried, corrupted because He began to believe in His own righteousness and condemned God for what he perceived was an unjust punishment. Job was in severe pain, in agony, his very existence a nightmare and he was trying to make sense of it. It didn't help that others were telling him it had to be because He'd done something wrong. The others couldn't comprehend that God' s plans could include allowing someone to be tortured by the devil, someone who had done nothing to deserve it.

We cannot begin to comprehend God's ways, they are so incredibly far above us. We don't know that some horror now might not be for some good later, we haven't a clue. We can guess all we want, but we don't know. The horrors we encounter seem to be enough to drive us mad with grief, and yet when all is said and down we have to trust that our Lord has HIS reasons far beyond our understanding and those reasons are just.

I think a lot of what goes on in our lives we forget to contribute to our God. The sun shining, the moon, the stars, the very breath we breathe, the heart that beats in our chests, the flower unfolding, the rain that drops, the majestic mountains, the clouds that form- we stop realizing the power of God and take for granted those very things that He has a hand in.

People want to explain everything and when they can't they make us their own theories and call them factual and scientific just because it's something they perceive and others agree with. What was scientific a 100 years ago might be proven complete wrong today, yet people believe their ideas were factual and true.

Just because you figure out the dna sequence does not mean you've created dna itself. Just because you take a stem cell and create other things from that cell, does not mean you've created a stem cell or can. Just because you've created a mechanical device for a heart does not mean you've created a heart. I could go on and on, but you have to get the point at least somewhat. How many of you know how your television receives the information that is portrayed on the screen? How many of you fully comprehend how electricity is harnessed and sent through wires to your house? How many of you comprehend radio waves? The majority of people don't have the understanding of these things and yet some do, they learn it and go on to learn more. Understanding things did not make them the creator of things. Understanding how to record of voice onto a tiny electronic chip, does not mean you understand every single point of that to the minutest detail. You might know how to put pieces together so they create something, but that doesn't mean you know how to create the pieces themselves. A bricklayer can mix up mortar to lay between the bricks, but he's using things he didn't create to make that mix.

We've come a long, long way from knowing very little about how things work, and we've debunked many a superstition, but in doing so MANY have tried to take God out of everything. Before we lived in a world that held the belief that God created, now we live in a world that takes great pride in what man seems to create. Satan has worked very hard to get people to believe in themselves over God, to believe in things over God and he's done a very thorough job of it. We like to say that if you are SMART you don't believe in the fairy tale, the fable of God, and people love to believe they are smart. The reality, they are more foolish than they'll ever know.

Jas 5:11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

1Pe 1:6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:
1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

By our God's mercy! By our God's love! May we endure to the end clinging to Christ's righteousness.