How Deep Is Your Faith?
“You have always protected him and his home and his property from harm. You have made him prosperous in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” -- Job 1:10-11
Do you want to know how strong your faith is? Do you ever wonder how deep your roots go? Have you ever looked down, maybe just a bit, at someone who seems to move and sway through their faith journey? Cockiness is easy when you’ve never been challenged.
Unfortunately, most folks never really know if their faith is solid and true until that faith is tested. Then it becomes one of those sink or swim moments. Either you cling tightly to your faith, counting on God to hold you up when you can’t stand up alone, or you let your circumstances destroy you.
It’s the difference between two widows, one standing and walking securely forward and the other barely able to face each day for the all-consuming grief. It’s the difference between a parent who never gives up on her child and a parent who turns a hardened heart toward a worthless cause. It’s the difference between an unemployed worker getting up each day and trying to build a better, a different, life and an unemployed worker who drinks away his days certain that nothing he can do will ever change his circumstances.
Job had everything. A large family. Wealth. And, most importantly, a God he adored. And that God allowed Satan to test Job, to take away his servants and his livestock. His children. And then his health. And still Job would not turn against his God. Job refused to blame his Creator, the One who gave him everything, when everything was gone. And for that God rewarded Job by giving him more children, more wealth.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean that we get to live an easy life. People sometimes get confused about that. Some folks believe that being a Christian means we get a free pass, a life with nothing really bad ever happening. And then it does. All those secret thoughts, those moments of believing people going through tough times somehow deserve it, come to mind. We look in the mirror. We don’t see a person deserving of such anguish. So we doubt.
Or we drop to our knees. We reach out for our God. We realize, finally, that life isn’t fair and that sometimes bad things really do happen to good people. Choices. God gave us the right to make choices. And, whether we deserve it or not, the choices of other people can sometimes have devastating consequences for us. We can either plant our feet firmly, counting on those roots of faith to hold strong, or we can let Satan’s wind rip us away from the only security we’ll ever know.
How strong is your faith? Think about it. Then pray you’ll never have to find out for sure.
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