Imagine this, you lose your home, your job, your family, and your wife goes nuts. Now, imagine it all falls apart in one day. If matters were not already horrid, you develop a skin disease that both itches and burns. While sitting alone, void of friendship and Godly counsel, Job has an astounding question, a paradigm shift, if you would. He asks himself, if a man dies, will he live again. All the days of my appointed time, will I wait until my change comes?
What an astounding change of thought. Earlier in the book, Job is known for trusting in the promises of God and he is also able to trust in the faithfulness of God; however, at this moment in Chapter 14, he is questioning the probability of life after death. Then he wonders if he will be able to hold out until he himself experience change.
This is the transition where most people fail. We lose trust at the impasse. It is the fork in the road, where we could go left or right, where we tend to choose left because it connects with our reason. However, it is in choosing that reasoned thought that we realize how we've made a mistake. Fortunately, God allows U-turns, but for those who choose to go right, what a remarkable time to experience both the highs and lows in God. Paul stated, I have known how to experience the greatness of God's highs and I know how to experience God’s lows. However, I have learned the secret to fulfillment in life. I know how to be humble. I know also how to abound. I am trained in everything and all things, in fullness and hunger, in excess and in poverty. In all of these differing life positions, I know how to be content throughout. Contentment is birthed in the classroom of life. Live through your struggle and know this, your struggle has an expiration date. Live past the date and experience the greatness of God’s faithfulness.
Contentment is learned through the birthing process called life. One thing we have to remember is (all of life's problems have an expiration date.)
Job 14 and Philippians 4:11.
