SQJ Taipei

As best we can tell from the account in the Old Testament book known by his name, Job lost nearly everything important to him in just a matter of hours… his oxen and donkeys, his sheep, his camels, his servants… and also his children… all 10 of them.

Can you imagine the pain? I admit that I cannot… but my guess is that we can all understand a bit of this pain… either from personal grief or by observing the trials of others.

On one occasion, I remember uncontrollably collapsing to the floor upon hearing of a major moral failure by a person I greatly admired. One of my students while serving as Missionary on Campus at Ozark Christian College lost his infant daughter in a tragic accident shortly after we left… I literally lost my breath reading his account of the accident. I once spent a birthday racing my wife and 2 kids from Joplin to St. Louis so we could see “Boppa” one more time before he went home to Jesus. A week later, we buried that good man.

Job 1:20-21 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”

Tonight during our English worship service, we were blessed by the words of a song by Matt Redman entitled “Blessed Be Your Name“.

Blessed be Your name when the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s “all as it should be”
Blessed be Your name
And blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name