The trouble with trouble is that it’s no trouble to find it.


Job 4:7-11


We don’t have to look very hard.

It seems like everywhere we go, we can find it – or it’ll find us.

And what am I referring to?

Everyone’s favorite companion…

Trouble.

Why is that? Why does trouble follow us around like that little black cloud hanging over our shoulder, accompanying us everywhere we go?

Well, sometimes it’s because we put our hand in the cookie jar, while other times, the cookie jar gets knocked off the shelf as we’re reaching for a glass of water.

In other words, sometimes it’s our fault and other times it’s not.

But does that really matter?

First of all, our inward analysis of trouble shouldn’t begin with where it came from or why, but rather what are we going to do about it?

Today’s Tiny Words. Big Life. Bible verse comes from the Book of Job and gives us a beautiful and eloquently written answer to that very question.

A little background… Job was a man who had been blessed mightily by God. He was a man of great wealth. He had a wonderful family. He was the envy of all his friends. In fact, the first three verses say it like this: “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.”

So Job, as we might say, had it going on. He was very successful and had done it the right way. Even God said that he was blameless and shunned evil – which doesn’t mean he was perfect but rather his affairs were always in order and if they weren’t, he’d take steps to make them right.

Speaking of evil, The Evil One, up to his usual shenanigans of no good, went to God with some angels, presumably to see what he could get into. God, being God, asked him where had he been? (Of course, God knew the answer but He asked anyway.) The Evil One responded by saying he had been “roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.

Yeah, God knew that. It’s what Satan does.

God, again being God, knew what Satan was up to… He was looking for any angle that would demonstrate to God how powerful he was.

So, God decided to show him the exact opposite – how weak and predictable he really was (is).

God asked Satan if he had ever considered His servant Job? In other words, God was so confident in Job that he gave The Evil One the freedom to give Job a heavy dose of trouble.

Satan responded by basically saying, “What do you expect? You’ve placed a hedge around him so nothing bad ever happens to him. He then challenged God with these words, “But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

As Satan fell for the divinely laid trap, God told him “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.

Of course, Satan ran with that and flew right down to Earth and got busy making Job’s wonderful life full of misery and trouble.

While this post doesn’t have the ink space to delve into all the nuances of the Book of Job, suffice to say that Job suffered greatly at the hands of Satan. He lost his fortune and his family in a series of horrendous tragedies but remained steadfast to his faith.

Then, after seeing that Job remained faithful, God allowed Satan to visit Job again and attack him physically by afflicting him with sores all over his body.

Although Job was discouraged at the devastation of all he knew and loved, he also had to put up with foolish and self-serving advice from his friends and the wicked tongue of his wife to which he responded, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?

In the end, Job kept his faith. He knew that God would never ultimately forsake him. He knew that what looked like, and felt like, more than he could bear was only an opportunity to glorify his God, the maker of all things. As a result, God restored his fortunes and gave him double of all the things he had before.

The Tiny Words. Big Life. takeaway is this: Trouble will come and trouble will go, but the Lord will never leave you. Pray to accept the good and the bad and be grateful to God for all we have. Pray over and over to use the bad times to grow your faith, rather than tearing it down. Pray to be an example to others on how to respond when trouble strikes.

In closing, a word to the wise… Always keep your cookie jar full of cookies. After all, who wants to get caught with their hand inside for just one cookie?


Job 4:7-11

“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
    Where were the upright ever destroyed?
As I have observed, those who plow evil
    and those who sow trouble reap it.
At the breath of God they perish;
    at the blast of his anger they are no more.
10 The lions may roar and growl,
    yet the teeth of the great lions are broken.
11 The lion perishes for lack of prey,
    and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

1 Comment

  1. jswearen on July 19, 2021 at 12:02 pm

    How can one even begin to appreciate the good in the world in the world until one has experienced the dreadful. To be challenged is to become even more than you already are.