Target Practice

“God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. ¹²I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. ¹³His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. ¹⁴He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant" ( Job 16:11-14).  

    Job said that God had shaken him to pieces.  And not only that, but God was using Job for target practice!  The archers of God were hitting the bull’s eye every time, and Job’s heart was the bull’s eye.  They aimed at his livestock, and all was lost.  They aimed at his servants, and all were destroyed except for four who were kept alive just to bring the bad news to Job.  The lives of his children were taken; and then, added to all that, Job’s health was attacked, and more misery was added to him.  His wife suggested he should just curse God and die.  Life did not appear worthwhile any longer.  

    Job’s grief and problems were so great that he stated that if you were to put his grief and the weight of his calamity on one side of a scale and then put all the sand of the sea on the other side, his grief would outweigh the sand of the sea (Job 6:2-3).  The loss in Job’s life was so great that we just sit on the sidelines and try to comprehend what we can.  What do most of us know about loss of this magnitude?  But we do suffer loss, and, though it may not be of the same measure as Job’s, it still has the power to overwhelm us with grief.  We then begin our own search for God.

    Job tried to find God in all that was taking place in his life.  But his knowledge of God and of the works of God had not arrived to this level of understanding.  The tools God uses to enlighten us are sometimes unconventional.  He sees what we need in a far different light than what we see.  We think that we need more things, but God sees that we need patience and grace.  

    Patience played an important role in Job’s ability to endure the trial.  He didn’t have all the answers, but he refused to curse God and die.  He held on to a faith that said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15a).  He knew that as long as he stayed in the crucible of God and endured the testing that he would come forth as gold.  James said it this way, “Behold, we count them happy which endure.  Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11).  Not only was the patience of Job witnessed in his ordeal, but the patience of God toward us is also made manifest.  Our God is longsuffering, and He is of tender mercies.  

    Paul realized that Christians go through difficult and trying times.  In his second letter to the Corinthian church, he expressed how we handle these times.  “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body......¹⁶For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; ¹⁸While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:8-10, 16-18).

    Paul also stated in his letter to the Romans that our difficult times do not separate us from the love of God.  “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. ³⁷Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, ³⁹Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).  

    The next time you feel that God is using you for target practice, don’t throw up your hands and quit.  Why not allow God to bring you to a higher level of understanding and a deeper trust and commitment to Him?  He never forsakes His own!

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