Lessons from the Book of JOB

The Story of Job goes something like this: Satan and the angels come before GOD and GOD says to Satan have you considered my servant Job - he is a righteous man, he fears God and shuns evil. Satan responds yes but he’s like that for a reason - because you have put a hedge of protection around him and blessed him. Let me have at him - and he’ll surely curse you to your face. And so the wager begins - God gives Satan permission to torture Job to prove that Job won’t curse God even through hard times.

Lesson One: God Protect the Righteous

Job 1 vs 6: Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” 

If you strive to put God first in your life God will surely put a hedge of protection around you. Only God can allow tragedy or difficult times to beset a righteous man. And when tragedy or the valley does appear it’s not random. Our lives are no longer random. When tragedy strikes, God is still fully in control and we need to ask God what he is doing in and through us during difficult times.

Hundreds of years later, David seconds those ideas in Psalms.

Psalm 125 says:

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be shaken but endures forever.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the Lord surrounds his people

both now and forevermore.

When you don't feel like God is surrounding you like the mountains surround Jerusalem - we need ask God what he’s in and through us and how can I become a part of what you’re doing in this situation.