We Only Want To Accept Good Things?

Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? —Job 2:10

When you ask a couple who wants to get married, they will tell you all the good things about their soon to be life-partner. 25 years later, they will probably change the answer. What I hear so often is that, they learn and grow together through good times and bad times. You receive the good and the bad from each other. Those experiences can only make you stronger. If I can change Job’s tone to married couple, it probably sounds like “Shall you only accept good things from your life-partner, and shall you not accept adversity from him/her?”

This daily reading from our daily bread has got me thinking about human’s hope to receive good things. Let’s be honest, no one wants bad things to happen in their life. But when it does happen, and it is very likely to happen, what is our response to it?

Job’s wife asked him to ‘curse God’ and die when he lost all his possessions, children, and self esteem when he received bad skin disease. At this point, he had to sit far away from everyone else. His friends accused him and his wife told him to die. He is now in a very terrible state of living.

Nevertheless, Job said that we should not only expect to receive good things from God, but also bad things. Until this point he did not know the conversation God has with he devil. He thought his ill-fate was from God, and he still thinks that he should accept it.

What Job’s wife is exactly the answer of people who questions God’s existence. If you believe in God, and yet still in a bad situation, then you should curse God and die.

The plea to curse God and die in Job’s case is very legit. Yet, Job’s statement shows that he surrenders himself totally to God’s will, in good time and bad times.

Job answer’s shows his high moral development. The lowest moral level is punishment and reward, which means you expect something when you do good things. When you are still a child, your parents train you to this kind of logic, give you candy or buy something as a reward of something you’ve achieved. Job was also beyond the level of self-esteem of moral developments when you do something for your self-esteem. He is doing something because he feels and knows that it is the right thing to do.
Job story is fascinating because it asks us to question our motive in believing the Lord, is it only for reward and punishment? Or can we love the Lord with no motive at all? Can we love the Lord on the reason “because the Lord has” and not “so the Lord shall”? When we think about this, then we will certainly accept that the Lord has adversity, but never a plan to harm us, only to make us stronger (Jeremiah 29:11).

When you know that God has good plans for you, and God knows what is better for you, then adversity is not a something to regret. No one wants it, but when it happens, we know God is still in charge.

In marriage, you also experience bad things from your life-partner. If you are truly supporting each other, bad experience never came from bad intentions. That is why you accept your partner, through good times and bad times. If you leave your partner in bad times, then you are very self-centered for wanting the good times only. Think about what your partner experience from you, do you think they only have good times?

To accept good and bad times. Job accept God in good deeds and adversary. What about you?

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