So Much More Than I Deserve

I'm struggling. Why? Because everything within me, namely my flesh, wants to go against God's conviction in my life. And I have in little, yet significance ways. Why? Because I want to do what I want to do in the way that I want to do them.

But as I processed through, I realized that I really wasn't helping the situation, as I had hoped. Why? Because I was doing things on my own terms.

So I fell on my face before God. Broken and knowing what I had done. Knowing that I had done what I wanted despite the convictions He has called me to. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do.

As I sat there, I prayed. Measly words that came to my head. I prayed the best I knew how, and the only thing I knew was that I cannot allow this to happen again. For my sake. For the person's sake. For God's sake.

Job, flashed through my head. Remember that story? Job loses everything, his friends give terrible counsel, and then God rebukes Job.

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you will instruct ME!" [38:3]

If I had God speaking this to me... I would feel down right low... shameful at best. Then God goes and lists these things that are too powerful and wonderful for us to understand, let alone control. So here you have God telling Job to please explain all these ways of nature to Him.

Isn't that what I am doing? Questioning the God that holds the world together? The God that created the very world and all its complexities. After a couple of chapters of asking Job if he knows about all these intricate details of creation, God then says,

"Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine." [41:11]

*slap*  Who am I to demand things of God? Who am I to expect what I want? Who am I to think that I deserve anything: a house, food, clothing, a friend?  Everything belongs to God. Not me. I'm not entitled to anything.

And Job replies, "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I do not know. Hear now, and I will speak; I will ask YOU, and YOU instruct me." [42:2-3]


How can I focus on what I do not have, when God has given me more than I deserve? By showing ingratitude for these little things that mean little in comparison to the great salvation He has given us, am I then saying that God what you did through Jesus Christ is not enough, because I need this one other thing?  In essence, I am.

I have become like Job, questioning the very Maker who has sacrificed His only Begotten Son that I may have LIFE and have it abundantly. "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence." [2 Peter 1:2-3]


We have everything we need to live life. And that's God. We have everything we need in this life, and that's God and His Son Jesus Christ. Yet why do we live like we need so much more?

Because we have forgotten the purification through Christ.

We have forgotten that we were once enemies of God, helpless, and damned to hell.

We have forgotten the cross.

We have forgotten to give thanks for what we do have and what we have been given.

We have forgotten.