Prayer Stewards
Then the Lord changed Job’s fortune when he prayed for his friends,
and the Lord doubled all Job’s earlier possessions.
Job 42:10
It’s difficult to overcome the betrayal of those that are closest to you, be it a spouse, a child, a best friend, a parent... The greatest hurts for people often come from those whom we hold in very high esteem, people that are, or that we consider, family. This was the case for Job, when the going got tough for him, his friends made it tougher, piling on the junk to try and understand what it was to deserve to have all the things that mattered to him lost.
Job doesn’t take too it easily; he gives as good as he gets, until finally God comes down to the bruised and broken Job to set things straight, basically that while God is huge, that God does care about creation. He then offers a challenge to Job: pray for your friends.
And Job does. He makes sacrifices to God for them, praying for their reconciliation with God and with Job. At this point Job’s fortune turns around and all that he had lost was restored... It’s this last part that is the most challenging for us as readers of this word. All Job had to do was pray and his life would be made new? It isn’t as simple as all of that for us, in the here and now, but it is an amazing lesson for us all from God: holding on to hurts from the past does nothing for us. However, acts of reconciliation and love do.
This week, I’d invite us all to think on the hurts that we need to hand up to God, that we can move on and do God’s work. We gave out a little help in worship this week, a little sticker for everyone to take home, to remind us of God’s generosity, and our call to pray for our faith family:
Give thanks to God, and say your prayers,
Rev. Jarrod
0 comments: