Faith tested?

This post is a day late and a repeat of Januarly 4 because I spent almost all of yesterday in the ER. After dozens of tests, the botton line was recurrence of A-fib. In my case, the treatment is called cardioversion. While relatively painless, it robs me of all energy. I’ve slept most of the day and am making numerous typos.

It seems appropriate to be reading Job. Job was a righteous man whom Satan tested with the argument that his faith would only last as long as God protected him. God allowed the test and Job lost everything but his wife and his life. He had no idea what was going on, only that he had not sinned or rebelled against the Lord.

His friends were not much help. Their ‘faith’ said that as long as a person did right, God would bless them. In other words, Job had to be guilty of something.

In reading Job 1-5, I understood some of Job’s angst. My A-fib has my heart alternating between slow and racing. My entire body aches. I’m dizzy. The fluid build-up from too much sodium is slow to go away and making my heart work too hard. To top it off, my left eye looks as if someone put into it a generous squirt of blood. All I want to do is sleep.

Yet as I read Job, I understand the power of God to keep His people strong in faith, even when life goes sideways. The Holy Spirit has a way of filling my heart with joy, even when my heart is doing jumping jacks. That joy is from the reality of Jesus. He is right here with me. I am not stressed!

Tozer says, “We will never understand the Holy Spirit so long as we terminate our thought upon Him. The Scriptures always lead us on beyond every subjective experience to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.”

Had the Apostle Paul been at the side of Job, this is what he might have said to him . . .

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:1–11)

Job was in the Spirit, not hostile to God and looking forward to his own resurrection. He shared his distress yet words were more like “this is the way it is” rather than a pity-party. He said, “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:26)

Only the Spirit of God can give a deeply suffering person that hope, that attitude. As Paul said, because the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in me, He will give life to my mortal body also.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, this is not the first time You have given me Your peace when I would expect myself to be agitated and even angry about my situation, but this experience is deeper, richer, and I thank You for Your grace.