Earthly Challenges and Heavenly Guarantee

If “true Godly believers” never have to face pain, loss, hardship, difficulty or failure, can you imagine, despite our Christian label, where our carnal nature would take us – to a place of worldly fulfillment, misplaced pride and bigoted altruism, in that order.

During testy phases of our lives, how many of us can honestly say from the bottom of our hearts what Job said “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Two lessons here - on eternal need and earthly needs:

1)    On the eternal aspect we can be rest assured. We are believers by faith. Despite our harder and sometimes rough journey, our eternal need (gift of salvation) is sealed and it is granted by God's grace and by our faith - For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

2)      On wordly needs – when we face prolonged pain with no apparent end, our carnal egoistic pride and "controlling" behavior gets broken and decimated. “A broken and contrite spirit, God will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). This will lead to being in the center of God’s will and that will look along these lines…..as written in Job 33:23-26,

”……Yet if there is an angel at their side,
    a messenger, one out of a thousand,
    sent to tell them how to be upright,
²⁴ and he is gracious to that person and says to God,
    ‘Spare them from going down to the pit;
    I have found a ransom for them—
²⁵ let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;
    let them be restored as in the days of their youth’—
²⁶ then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,
    they will see God’s face and shout for joy;
    he will restore them to full well-being.

Our faith and trust on the one True and Living God our Father (Abba) in Heaven is sufficient. He has met our eternal need and will meet our earthly needs. Will He not be sufficient for us?