Studying Job....

On May 16 - Saturday - 2 am... I was like, "What are the specific things I want God to teach me, and what are the things that I want to grow in?" So I made wrote a paragraph in my devotional about the specific things I want God to work in me, and the things I want to be making a continual effort in. "I want to learn to pray and worship with an understanding of who God is, his character, his power..." So I started reading Job, Acts, Psalms, and Proverbs. I know it sounds like quite a handful, but its all really quite interesting how its working together. Im studying the life of Job... who he was, how he responded to the voice of God, to troubles, how he lived.... Im studying Acts because its the new way God works, and its just full of the power of God... Its inspiring really... Im reading Proverbs just a chapter a day. I always pray that God would give me wisdom and discernment in every circumstance, and though I can pray for the wisdom God gave Solomon, I need to feed myself too... so, Im reading Proverbs... I really enjoy it. As for the Psalms... Im so inspired by David. He didnt have it all together. He was a shepherd... he was by himself all the time... but he worshipped... just him and God spending time together, he worshipped. God rescued David countless times... I love Psalm 18, because it just reminds me that my God is a warrior God. There are no limits on what he can do. Hes God! The way God responded to Davids cries... vs 19 says, "He rescued me because he delights in me." Why does God delight in David? Not because he's perfect, but because his intentions are pure. He longs for more of God... He wants to know who God is... he worships from his heart... He worships not because people can see, but because he wants to honor God. David certainly didnt have it all together, and God knew it. God knows were human, but God delighted in David... because of the purity in the intentions of Davids heart. Verse 7-15 remind me of my warrior God. Vs 16 says "He reached down from heaven and resuced me; he drew me out of deep waters. He delivered me...... but the Lord upheld me... he resuced me because he delights in me..." David is referred to as the Lords servant a hundred times in the Psalms. . . He was a beauiful worshipper, and the reason Im studying the Psalms is to begin to understand how to live a life of worship in every aspect of my day to worship. . . without the band, without people.... just me and God... to learn how to continually worship God. Psalm 19 in the beginning of the chapter says, "The heavens tell of the glory of God. . . Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known." David saw the glory of God in everything around him, which is why and how he was able to continually worship... Im finding it really cool to study strange things... Reading the Psalms always seemed like the chincy way to "get thru devos" but... studying the Psalms is really interesting. . . learning about David... who he was... why he was who he was... who he was in God and through God... just really cool. Studying the Psalms and Job has been really good for me this week...

Interesting little fact - in Job, the later chapters like 13,14,15, Job begins to really lose his faith.. he curses the name of God and his existence... but in all this, there were men that surrounded him that reminded him of the character of God, the power of God and who God was.. hmm... Job didnt have men around him that would agree with how unjust God was... Job didnt have men around him that would pity him.. he had men around him that held him to a higher standard. They reminded him of who God is. In Job 15, Eliphaz says to Job after Job gives God the rundown of how unjust he is, "Were you the first perso ever born? Were you born before the hills were made? Were you listening to Gods secret counsil? Do you have a monopoly on wisdom? What do you know that we dont? What do you understand that we dont?.... Your sins are telling your mouth what to say. YOur words are based on clever deception. But why should I condemn ou? Your own mouth does..." Now this is really cool... verse 34 "Is His gentle word not enough?" Job scoffed at the wisdom of these men, and after telling them to not speak another word, and to just listen to Jobs plea, they spoke and said this... they knew what Job was going through. They had been with him for weeks, but they knew the character of God and reminded Job of it. vs 34+35 - "For the godless are barren... They conceive trouble and evil and their hearts give birth to only deceit."

Interesting, dont you think? I think that its really interesting that the men with Job, Eliphaz and Zophar, were men of wisdom.. men of God... men of integrity... they came around Job and even when Job scoffed at the name of God, they reminded Job of who God really was... Those are the kind of people we need around us in times of trouble and pain... not people that will agree with us, not people that will feed our negativity.. people that will remind us of who God is and stand beside us even when we dont want them there...

Gods so good... dont you think? ;)

Later days