“My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.” (Job 17:11)
Job’s world fell apart. His children, his livelihood, his health taken away from him in three fell swoops. There he sat, desolate, broken, looking into a future so different than he had imagined. As far as he was concerned his life was over. The plans he had made were disintegrated. The only thing that still filled his mind was the question, “Why?”
The question for us is this: if our world would fall apart, would we fall apart with it? Would we no longer have a reason to live? Job hung in there, but just barely. His wife told him to “curse God and die,” but he refused. In the midst of his pain Job chose to turn toward God. Even in great perplexity and heaviness of heart, he chose to trust God. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him …” (Job 13:15)
When all else is gone, does God still remain? When the plans we made for our lives have gone up in smoke, do God’s plans for us end as well? Job battled through a tempest of emotions to finally encounter the Lord who calmed and settled his heart and mind. The world he knew, the world he hoped for, was lost to him, but his God had a new world in store.
Do not fear a day when your world falls apart. Fear only that your world will be absent of God. He is ultimately all you need. He can keep you together in a day of devastating loss. He is the one thing that cannot be taken away from you – unless you let Him go – and then your loss will be a catastrophe from which there is no recovering.