Desires and Fears

Reading about Job scares me! It’s easier to read about God’s punishment for wrong, but Job didn’t do anything wrong! He was found righteous in God’s eyes! To have the faith of Job!! His life was in God, not his family or possessions. My favorite Bible verse that I have claimed over and over is Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I have never applied that verse to Job, but His desire HAD to be in God, that is the only way he could survive all that happened to him.
Job 3:25 is one of the saddest verses in the Bible to me: “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” Since I became a mother almost 9 years ago, my worst fear is losing ONE of my children – not to mention ALL of them. I think that is every mother’s worst fear. I was looking up Psalm 37:4 and typed in 34:4 instead. This is what I found: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears”. How wonderful that we have the promises of Psalm 34:4 I pray my desire will always be found in God ALONE and that He will deliver me “from all my fears”!!

Completely Confused!!!

I am completely confused!!! Instead of buying another new Bible (my current one is only about a year old) I decided to use the One Year Bible Online. I didn't realize until I started reading your blogs about JOB that I am off! That reading schedule doesn't match what Tina posted. AHHHHH!!! Guess I'm going to be getting a new Bible ;). Sorry my posts probably have not made any sense -- I wasn't reading the same thing the rest of you were.

I'm expanding our little blog idea....

So I went to visit a friend's house this past Saturday and told her about this blogging community and how as a bunch of ladies we are reading through the Bible together. She really liked the idea and wanted to read too (I live in a small town in Mexico, people here generally do not use the internet and reading is limited usually). So that night I printed off the One Year Chronological Bible schedule and gave it to her with translations of the English books of the Bible into Spanish. I also gave her an easier version of the Bible to read since they tend to use their version of KJV, which no one understands. I haven't checked back with her, but she was excited to have something that told her what to read everyday instead of just opening up and reading something random.

As I was talking with her, it made me wonder if other ladies in our small church would like to do this too. I went to talk to the leader of the church and he liked the idea, but leadership had just changed for the year and I had to go talk to another dear friend about it (leadership in our church does not equal pastor, it's a long, complicated story- just ignore what you don't understand and go with it). She liked the idea, but had to talk with the other lady leaders about it. After church on Sunday they asked if they could get the daily Scriptures copied down in Spanish and I told them I would try to find it for them. I also showed them the One Year Bible in Spanish and this Saturday when I'm in the city I have to price it for everyone and try to find easier versions to read than their 'KJV'.

So it's a little bit of a process, but reading through the whole Bible would be great for our church where knowledge is small and needs to grow. Hopefully they'll like it too and want to keep doing it in years to come. They won't be joining our blog, but I'll let you know how things develop and proceed.

May the name of the Lord be praised!!

This mornings Bible reading in Job 1:1-3:26. Really makes you think differently ( or at least I do) about problems and struggles in life. Job had it all, money, great family, friends and he was happy. Times of testing did come for Job, when everything seemed to come crashing down all at the same time. I've had days where everything that could go wrong did, and more!

I think sometimes we think to ourselves: I did something wrong and God is punishing me, but maybe you have done everything right and God is just testing you. We half to trust God in the hard times in life and with the things we do not understand ( this is sooooo easy to write, but hard to walk out at times).A passage that stuck out to me from Job was " The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised". I mean really with all that Job had gone through he said " may the name of the Lord be praised"!! I pray for a heart like Job's!! Even in the hardest of hardest times, I want to say not just with my mouth but really with my heart MAY THE NAME OF THE LORD STILL BE PRAISED!!

In Worship

I can not imagine the pain and anguish that Job felt at this time in his life. I can only relate on such a very small level.
This is what caught my heart this morning. The bible says that Job fell to the ground......in worship. In worship! I can tell you that my first response to pain and struggles is not to worship. What a lesson. I need to be more like Job.

This one's a challenge....

When I read the story of Job I find myself gettting frustrated with God. Why would God allow such a faithful, dedicated servant to endure so much pain and suffering just to prove a point to Satan? Obviously God already knew how Job would respond - "The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. May the name of the Lord be praised." Honestly, I don't know that I could survive the loss of my children and my livelihood. That scares me. Shouldn't I have better faith and trust God in all things; good and bad? He, of course, knows the circumstances of my life. My prayer is that I will completely trust in God. Currently, God has our family in a place of refining. In the last three years we've had to deal with some issues that are pretty major - death of a beloved family member, health of a child, financial struggles, and others, but in all of this, God is still in control. God never left Job and I am confident that He will continue to walk with me and my family too.

Sweet Lord, please allow us to hear from you today just so that we know that you are still with us through these challenging times. Like Job, I want to praise you in the good and bad times because I know in the end, Your plan for my life will prevail. Thanks for your amazing grace and love.

... and he had him who had him...

Like Tina, my first reaction was- Wow, that's a lot of genealogy! One guy had a son who was that guy, and that guy had another, and he had him, who had him... hard name had hard name... But as I thought about it I realized that God took notice of every one of them. He made sure each name was in the Bible. It reminds me that God know our names too. He sees every life. We all matter to Him, and nothing we do is hidden from Him. He also sees our children and He cares about them. This was good for me to realize since my children and I have been through some pretty rotten stuff over the past 13 years. He has seen it all, and has been through it all with us. God is faithful. :) He has seen every tear we've cried and He's saving them in His bottle, like it says in Psalm 56:8. I told some of my prayer friends at a Bible study a couple of months ago, that that verse has become precious to me. You see, I like to journal my prayers a lot; it helps me stay focused. I have a bit of ADD. So, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, journaling... Let me just quote the verse from the New Living Translation.
"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book."
God journals about me!!! Ya'll He really knows us! He really cares about us! He writes down every little thing that hurts us. So I know nothing is wasted. We may not know why some things happen until we get to heaven, like human injustice, and Tina's crazy leg complications, but we can trust Jesus. No one knows suffering like Jesus. I am so glad we have a God who sees us and cares for us and flat out carries us when we can't walk anymore. Thank you Father for loving us so incredibly deeply.