One of the major “markers” of measuring how our faith/love have matured is too look at our  “consistency of heart” towards God and people.  For example, all of us as young people have struggled to get along with our parents at some point in time.  So what we tend to do is define them by our season of instability, frustration, or pain.  Allowing our present feelings for a season of time, to define an person’s entire character.

Now as imperfect as we are as people, sure there are justifiable judgments we make, that may be enough to label that person’s character, as a liar, mean, manipulative, etc.  The issue comes, when we transfer difficult “seasons” in our Christian life, that God is responsible for permitting, and label Him like we label people…

Job in his tragic season of suffering knew God intimately, and was faithful and never lost his integrity to trust God.  But in his humanity could only interpret what he felt about the Lord and his life at the time, that God had turned cruel to me.  That in his season of hardship, as good as He knew God had been to him, he didn’t deny how he saw his life and his God at the time.  But he never quit trusting in Him…

Immature faith is shown by our lack of commitment, and instead is fueled by the conditions of life, which change all the time!  How shallow would Job be to curse God in a time of hardship, and God was the one who blessed him with all he lost?  But Job consistently walked with God, and knew despite a dramatic change in “conditions”, God was good.  In a season of weakness, Job had saw God as cruel, but knew Him` as too good to leave Him, because he saw his life and everything good coming from Him. (James 1:17)

When it comes to the Lord, being conditional about my faithfulness is never a character issue that Jesus has, but a maturity issue I have.  Eventually, Job like you and I, must trust to see the end of God’s plan.  That is when we realize, that only He can work good out of something awful.  This magnifies His unsearchable riches and goodness, that makes fighting to trust Him a way of life, even in dark seasons…(Romans 8:28, Romans 11:33)

In His Love, Ld