“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.” Job 1:9–12
There was a song on a television program called Hee Haw several decades ago, and the chorus went, “If I had no bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Gloom, despair and agony on me”. After going through the Bible study of Job, it doesn’t seem to me that Job deserved any of the sleet that satan poured on his parade. He had walked faithfully with God, and now he’s the best of the best, perhaps a GOAT in his country; "greatest of all the men of the east." Job was a humble servant of God. Satan wanted none of that. Are their areas of your life that satan, the enemy of anything that pleases God, would like to put to an end?
Take a good look at the Haitian girl in the attached photo. Satan is her enemy. He doesn’t want her to have that plate of rice and beans in her hands. He doesn’t want her to be in that Christian school learning about how her Savior loves her. And he certainly doesn’t want her offering a prayer to God, giving thanks for people like you who support her school’s Trinity HOPE feeding program.
The enemy that brings vodou priests and violent gangs into her country, and different painful challenges into our lives and brought seemingly endless problems from hell to Job, has been around since the Garden of Eden.
Satan is the enemy that each of us encounter; we cannot physically see him, but he is real. We encounter him or one of his fallen imposters regularly. He wants to ruin our lives and separate us from our Savior.
Like Job, there are and will be trials we endure that we don't deserve, but they are permitted. Life includes trials that we do not deserve, but they must, nevertheless, be endured. As a bucket load of gloom flushes out your energy, it may seem that satan has won the day. Endure the trial that has been permitted by God. Nothing touches your life that has not first passed through the hands of God. He is in full control, and because He is, He has the sovereign right to permit trials that we don't deserve. The unseen enemy has tried daily to prevent this child, and over 60,000 more like her, from having food for lunch and learning about Jesus. Satan has failed; game over. The victory belongs to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, 8not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
May God be with you,
Jay