If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy,
Job 8:5–7 ESV
if you are pure and upright,
surely then he will rouse himself for you
and restore your rightful habitation.
And though your beginning was small,
your latter days will be very great.
At this part of the story of Job, his “friends” have been sitting with him for several days. Job is miserable and crying out his heart and trying to figure out why God allowed all of this (death of his children, loss of all his animals, loss of his health) to happen. He never blames or curses God, but he’s trying to understand why things have transpired the way they have.
I think it’s safe to say that all of us have been in this position. We like to think we’ll stay the course and remain fixed firmly in God, but when trouble starts coming to take us down, we can falter.
Job’s friends were attempting to help him. At least, I like to think they were. Really, when their words are put all together, it seems more like they’re brow-beating him and telling him how he’s sinned and his children sinned along the way.
Anyway, in the midst of this, these words were spoken to Job. “If you will seek God… if you are pure and upright… then he will…”
These words seem to be good, until we remember grace.
Life is going to knock us down. There’s no doubt about that.
But because of grace, we don’t need to make ourselves perfect before kneeling at the feet of God and asking him to come before us and take care of us. He never lets us walk through the dark times alone. We may feel alone in the moment, but when we look back, we see that his hands were on us the entire time. He wept with us and loved us even when we didn’t love ourselves.
When we look back and see that, we start to see him in the “right now” too. We saw his faithfulness in the past and we know he’ll continue to be with us every single moment.
Then, verse 7 of the passage will come forth: “And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.”
Those days may not come here on earth, but God will see us through the victory always.
Dear God, thank you that I don’t need to come to you perfect, because if I did, I would never get to spend time with you. Thank you for sending Jesus so that I could live in grace. Help me to live the way you want me to live, and help me to remember that you are with me through every moment, not just the good times. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Brittany Stonestreet 