Lesson of the Week...

You know what's strange? Finding contentment when you feel like you have no idea what you're doing; when you don't have a real plan for the near future, when you don't know who may come into your life, when you don't know where you may be in the next year... and the fact of life here on this earth is that you will never know. I've been encouraging a friend to read the book of Job recently, and it makes me think about how I've been reacting to my current stage in life right now. Unlike Job, I'm not being placed into the hands of Satan for insane trials and torture, and no one would say that I am one of the most 'righteous' persons of this earth. However, I do feel like nothing is in my hands concerning my future. It's like the Lord is watching me from up above with His research team, studying how I make the 'bigger' decisions for myself. He already knows the outcome, but maybe He's curious to know if I will be seeking Him for the answers to the questions that bombard my brain at night....or maybe He wants to see if I will begin seeking answers from the logic that I think I have.

I would say that the will that He has given us is a gift. I also know that when we don't think about it as a gift, we think about it as a 'right' or a 'property' in a sense. It's difficult to meditate on the fact that my sin is powered by will. When I deliberately disobey God, that's my way of saying, "Hey, you gave will to ME and I'm going to use it for MY pleasure!". My knowledge of having will power as a gift should cause me to give back to the One who gave; it should motivate me to use it for pleasing the Giver of all things. So I sit here and wonder what Job was thinking after He had praised God for His sovereignty in the last chapter...He must have finally understood that his life was something that was completely not his own. He must have seen that the Lord can easily take it away from him in a flash, just as He took away the lives of so many of his loved ones in one day. Job was such a righteous man, did he struggle with contentment after everything that happened to him, after the book ends? Surely, he must have at least once! However, contentment is directly correlated to His sovereignty... So maybe Job learned his lesson for good! Maybe when he was resting his head at night he sat there dwelling upon the goodness of life in the Lord's sovereign plan for it. My prayer is that the Lord will remind me of how He has brought me here to this place so far, and how He has something greater planned for those who want to glorify Him. I pray that I would remember that will power is a great gift when used for Him, and that the future is not mine, but His. May I view this all as a marvelous blessing...probably like Job did.

Come, Oh Lord. Maranatha.