Often times in this life, you go to places you never thought you’d reach.

Things will happen to you that you would never have dreamed you would have to deal with or face.

We never expected an easy road. Our original way of instruction in the Church taught us that there would be a cross to carry.

To be like Jesus, likely meant that we would endure some of the same things He encountered in his life.

My name is not Job. Neither did I ever want to be like him, or go through the things he did. And my name is not Apostle Paul either.

Yes, through earnest desire, and wanting to do the things the apostles did, I expected persecution and to suffer some things.

But I did not want to go through all the things the Lord did, nor His followers of that day, to get there.

I had already had my own set of troubles and dark days from the beginning. My talents came with intense envy from others.

We wanted to be mightily used of God. A great number of us sought the gifts of The Spirit and to see those same signs and wonders following us.

If your heart and intent are right, you don’t follow signs; the signs follow you.

I say in honesty, that many of us did not know what we were getting into. We had been told of the persecution and opposition of those pioneers of this faith that came before us.

Whipped and beaten, run out of town, rotten tomatoes and rotten eggs tossed at them in their meetings. Mocked, made fun of, and openly ridiculed.

But I loved Him. No matter what happened to me, I loved Him.

I never knew I would fail; could never have seen that one day I might fall. Enough about me.

If I heard one thing growing up in the Church, it was that He would never leave or forsake me. But others thought He would.

I bow before Him to say that I love Him more today, than I ever did in my whole life.

How He has proven himself to me. The way He came seeking for me, when no one else did. Some of us may have forgotten what it meant to be lost; when the Saviour reached down for us.

I’m only telling this because He told me to. I have suffered. I can see and admit the suffering I brought on myself.

When you lose everything you ever had or believed in, you can know what bitterness really is.

I bow again before my LORD for the mercy and forgiveness He extended to me and for us all.

But what about the suffering that He as allowed? Those awful sicknesses, heartbreaks and despairs that came to shape us, change us and prepare us for the things we asked for, to bring us to the place He wants us to be; so He can use us.

I said recently that it can become easier to trust God when there’s no one else you can trust. I’m so glad that God put this story of Job in His Word for us today.

I came to relate to it in much greater detail in these latter years. I’ve sought Him, and could not find Him.

I reached for Him, and I could not see Him. I called for Him and I heard no answer.

But somehow, someway, I knew He was there. Why? Because He said he would be. Sometimes, that’s all I had. It became enough.

He knew I was going to come through it. He knew that from the very time He called me. He knows that about you too.

It no longer matters what others think of our journey, because He saw it from the beginning to the end, that is in sight.

Job cursed the day he was born; he did. But in spite of it all, he never cursed God.

There’s something down inside of us that really loved Him. He decided to use it one day for His own purpose.

That time has come. To bring about His final work.

 

~ Robert Blackburn

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Robert Blackburn

 

 

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