Why are you Still Holding On?

Why are you Holding On? Why haven't you given up? Why haven't you waved the white towel of surrender in your situation? No one would blame you for saying you have had enough, no one would criticize you if you wanted to quit, give up your integrity and your innocence and CURSE GOD AND DIE.

I know the Bible is true! "ALL SCRIPTURE is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness so that the man of God may be competent and equipped for every good work" II Tim 3:16-17, Therefore the placement of Job's wife in Chapter 2 for a brief cameo must have a purpose.

Job's wife has been demonized over the years as an uncaring, insensitive wife. St Augustine called her "Diaboli ajunctix", devil's advocate, St. Chrysotom called her "The devil best scourage", John Calvin called her "Organum santani" "The embodiment of Satan". Before anyone thinks I will play the part here of "bitter black man" and pile on to Mrs. Job, I disagree with this assessment. She was just playing her part.

Modern preachers and theologians to answer the mischaracterization of Job's wife as a demon have gone overboard to portray her as a saint. A simple caring women who did not want to see her husband suffer anymore, no selfish motive but a selfless spirit who demonstrates love for her husband. With all due respect to many of my fellow brethren, if there is no Biblical evidence to make her a devil, there is also none to make her a saint. She was simply playing her part.

What's her part reverend? She has the guts to pose the question that we have asked ourselves, that others have asked when watching us, Why do you keep holding on? Why am I still going through this? It's not worth it, I am tired of the abuse, the pain, the seemingly absence of God, why not give up. For everyone who does not understand this feeling, in the words of my pastor, A. Glenn Woodberry, KEEP LIVING. Your day is coming.

Chapters 1 and 2 of Job have a similar outline and that outline can be a quick description of our lives. There is a man, There is a day, There is a devil but There is a God. As sure as you are human, your day is coming when you will have to encounter the Devil, in the Hebrew the word was HAA-Satani- THE SATAN, it's the verb form which means ACCUSER/ADVERSARY.

It might be your DAY! Your day when THE SATAN, the accuser, the adversary shows up, shows up on your job, at your church, in your marriage, in your family, in your money, in your situation. Its your day of pain, persecution, problems, your day of trials, tribulations and trouble, your day of being broke, burdened and beat up by life, your day where you don't want to answer the phone, get out of the bed, talk, see or speak to anyone, your day where you want to yield to the suggestion, Curse God and Die.

I have written too much so I end by saying what C.S. Lewis said when asked "Why do the righteous suffer" Lewis leaned back and said, "WHY NOT", They are the only ones who can take it" Whatever you are going through, YOU CAN TAKE IT. 3 pots of boiling water, one with eggs, one with potatoes and one with coffee beans, same stress, same heat, same pots but different reactions. The potatoes becomes soft under the stress, the eggs became hard under the stress but the coffee beans turned to coffee.

Trouble for the Christian just gives you aroma, it gives you flavor. It doesn't destroy you, it makes you better, it reveals what you already had on the inside of you. That's all Job was saying when he told his wife you sound like a foolish women. A fool in this context and in Ps. 14 is a person who acknowledges that God may or may not exist but does not believe that He makes any difference in their lives or in their situation.

I can hold on not because I understand What I am going through!
I can hold on not because I understand Why I am going through it!
I can hold on not because I can make sense out of my situation!
I can hold on because I know WHO GOD IS.
I can hold on because I know WHOSE I AM.
I can hold on because I know How God Works.

SO I thank God for my mountains, I thank him for my valleys, I thank Him for the things He has brought me through, for if I never had a problem, I wouldn't know that God could solve them and I wouldn't know what Faith in God can do, Through it all, Through it all, I have learned(am Learning) to trust in Jesus, I have learned to trust in God, Through it all, Through it all, I have learned to depend upon God's Word.