Volume 50 Number 3 March 2008
A person should always strive to do what is right. We all know that. What do you do when you know what is right? What do you do when you face opposition? The opposition may be force, but in our time words are more likely. They can be practically the same thing. Perhaps we should start with a lesson from Job.
Job was a righteous man. He knew what he had done. Job was careful to maintain his relationship with God. Then when calamity came, through no fault of his own, he held his ground against three “friends.” His friends were certain that calamity only comes on those who deserve it. In the end, Job was vindicated by God and God required the friends to get Job’s help with their own lives.
A different person, who I sometimes feel was a little less sure of himself, was Joshua. Moses tells Joshua twice in
Deuteronomy 31 to “be strong and of good courage.” Then in the first chapter of the book of Joshua God repeats the same thing to Joshua four times. This man who had led Israel into battle before, and won, needed to be reminded. Perhaps this was because he was in the process of transitioning from being Moses’ assistant to being the man in charge of a full scale invasion.Joshua could very easily have said, “I can’t do this.” Many of God’s leaders have been people who didn’t know they were capable of leading. They had doubts, but they followed God in spite of their doubts. Their concerns and fears were nothing to the power of God. That is the message that God wanted to give Joshua. A message Job already knew. Joshua seems to have listened to the advice given to him and later in
Joshua 10:25 repeats it to the people. They do not have to fear because God is with them.Paul received the same lesson from the thorn in his flesh that he endured. He was told in
2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” How true this is, and how hard to implement! We want to be strong in and of ourselves. We want to be able to say that we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. This is impossible. It isn’t until we recognize our own weakness that we can give ourselves to Him. His power, His grace, His love is always available to us. Our God is not one who sleeps, or one who doesn’t care. Rather he is a personal God who is always working for the benefit of his people.In our own lives we all hit those times when we run out of our own steam. Our world is a hectic place where everyone is expected to get more done in less time. Our efficiency is always under question by our employers, our friends, and the world. Are our lives worse than they were a thousand years ago? We are still weak creatures. We are still fearful of what is in store for us. With all these similarities to the past I can still hear God say,
“Be strong and courageous.”