Never Alone

Happy Monday. “Don’t ever lose hope. Even when life seems bleak and hopeless, know that you are not alone.” ― Nancy Reagan

“I feel so alone, especially in a particularly large gathering.” This statement was said to me recently and made me sad. Have you been there? Have you felt isolated and unnoticeable to people around you?

Job had an experience like that. What did he do? Remember his great losses when Satan set out to prove Job would “give up” on God in testing time. During his grieving process (and it is a process), he had the company of three friends who sat with him and conversed with him. However, as far as providing comfort, they might as well have not been there. Sometimes human contact is not enough.

Recorded in Job 23 are Job’s thoughts, Oh that I knew where I might find him!… …I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:

Despite living in his pain of body and soul, Job looked back and remembered God is good. He by faith declared in Job 23:10, But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Good for Job! This is not an easy attitude to take when life hurts. The enemy might have been whispering, “You are known as a good man—why would God treat you this way?”

Do you recognize that argument? Maybe you have heard it in your time of pain. I am glad we know the end of Job’s story. He was given twice as much as he had at the beginning, but he did not know the conclusion until he got there.

Job made an A+ in his test!

Some things we can learn from Job are:

~ We will be tested, but only to the degree that God allows.

~ When we do not see or feel God, He is there—always, as promised.

~ We can anticipate the end of our tests as Job did, and know that when they are over, we shall be more like Christ if we keep faith and hope alive until then.

As the old hymn says:

“No, never alone, no, never alone;

He promised never to leave me,

Never to leave me alone.”

– Eliza Edmunds Hewitt

by Beverly Hyles

From the Mondays with Beverly blog. Reprinted with permission.