I have been reading a wonderful book by Charles Swindoll Called When God Is Silent. If you are looking for a great study of the life of Job or maybe just an inspirational text if you are going through a difficult time I highly recommend this book. I want to borrow a an idea that Reverend Swindoll suggests on page 102 of his book. " A vertical perspective will keep us from horizontal panic."
Sometimes people just find a perfect way to put a wonderful idea, Swindoll hit this one perfectly. In life there is the way that we are suppose to look at things, with faith and trust. Then there is the way that we often do look at things, in a panic that we must fix the things that are going wrong.
The simple fact is that bad things happen to good people. How we respond to these adversities either builds a Godly character or shows our human weakness. Modern Christians often fall into a false ideology, that if we believe, if we do what we should and live the way we ought to then we will prosper. Sometimes this is true. Then there is the "Job syndrome." You do everything right, okay not everything, but most of it you do right. Still it seems as though the dark cloud follows you every time you zig or zag it keeps dumping rain on your head.
This is when we must be vigilant to keep our perspective vertical. We must look to God not only as a person saying fix it, but as a person with faith saying, "I know that there is a reason that I am going through this now. Even though I cannot see the reason I know in God's time it will be revealed." Easier said than done!! Trust me, I know
However, what a testimony this kind of faith and trust creates. In the face of great trial we do not walk around as non-believers saying woe is me; instead we endure, able to show our faith and able to praise God openly. Then, if it is his will, when we come through the other side others can look at us and say that we never lost our faith. They can say that they are not sure that in the face of the adversity we have met they could have withstood and maintained. Then, God can say to you, go be fishers of men. What a wonderful example of true Christian Faith we have an opportunity to become when we do not panic at the things of this world, but we keep our focus on the ways and thoughts of God.
It is this kind of faith, it is through this kind of trial that we develop Godly Character. Would Job have been remembered if he had not gone through his own trials? Would Paul's testimony mean as much if he had not been persecuted and found faithful at every turn? Whatever the trials in your life remember to look at them not from our horizontal, human perspective, but as an opportunity to be found faithful and useful in God's perfect, vertical perspective.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart."
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