May the Name of the Lord be Praised!

Boy has it been a rough couple of weeks!  For those of you who don't know, we closed on our first home at the end of March and moved in April 1.  Let me preface all of this by saying we love our home.  The space inside, the beautiful yard, quiet neighborhood, and nice neighbors.  We prayed and prayed and prayed that God would lead us to the home He has for us in the area He desired us to be and we truly believe He did just that.  Then we moved in.  Within our first 2 weeks here I had three different plumbers out here trying to figure out why everything was backing up into our downstairs toilet.  They seemed to get it all straight and the next week we found a water spot on the ceiling just below the master bathroom . . . another plumber out to fix it.  Then we could breathe . . . for about 2 days before everything started backing up into the downstairs bathroom again.  Some more plumbers, digging up the yard, problem fixed.  In the meantime my computer died and took all of my files with it (sorry I don't have the Venezuelan Lasagna recipe for you - it was good), my car battery died in a parking garage after church one Sunday, and my phone got left of the back bumper of my car to be thrown out into the street in the middle of downtown to be returned later.  Phew!  It was a chaotic time around here and I was not reacting well.

We had a speaker a couple weeks ago at church that said something that stuck with me because I realized it's how I had been thinking.  He said some of us think God has forgotten our name and lost our address.  Just after hearing this my car battery died and my phone was lost.  I joked that I thought I had left a forwarding address for God when we moved, but it must have gotten lost.  It sounds funny, but at a deeper level that is what I was struggling with.  I started questioning if we had heard God correctly.  Had I done something wrong and was being punished?  Every day seemed to bring a new set up frustrations and I was not handling it well.  Finally I decided I needed some perspective so I turned to Job.  In the first chapter Job loses his livestock, servants, and all ten of his children.  Not only that but he is told back to back to back without a break between blows.  I experienced this on a very minuscule scale and my reaction was frustration, anger, and displacing those emotions on others.  So how did Job respond?

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.'

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

~Job 1:20-22

Rather than get angry, yell, and curse God, Job recognized God's immense power.  He didn't question why all of this happened, but trusted that God had a plan.  And he worshipped!  Later on in chapter 2 Job's own wife tells him to curse God and die (Job 2:9) and Job again refuses, choosing to trust God's plan and sovereignty. 

Reading this brought a lot of conviction.  I was not handling these situations well and certainly was not trusting God's plan.  I repented and asked God to help me react to each situation in a way that would glorify Him.  In that moment I realized how much He had already stepped in with each problem and I hadn't thanked him.  With all of the plumbing issues we only had to pay the initial plumber to come out because the company that sold us the house decided to fix all of the issues at no charge to us - that almost never happens!  They didn't have any obligation to help, but they did.  When my computer died we were able to find another one at a very reasonable price the same day.  When my car battery died my parents just happened to be in town to help and there just happened to be a guy in the parking garage with jumper cables who was willing to let us hold him up to borrow them.  And when my phone flew off into the street downtown, someone picked up it, answered it, and waited for us to come pick it up.  Every one of those situations could have turned out very differently, but God did not forget my name.  He never lost my address.  He knew exactly where I was the entire time and was working on my behalf through it all.  It was me who lost sight of Him.  My perspective and focus became too much on the problem in front of me and not the Problem-Solver.  May I remember this lesson the next time we face difficulty and trust that He is in complete control.