“For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has befallen me. I am not at ease or quiet; I have no rest, for trouble has come.”
Job 3.25–26
I think we can all agree that Job went through crap.
He was a godly man with a good reputation and positive influence who went through devastation, rejection, physical pain and emotional shame all because of a wager made in heaven that he had nothing do to with. God wanted to prove something to Satan and used Job to do it.
Job got a bad rap. He didn’t deserve what he got. His setback was not the result of bad living, and he knew it.
His four buddies tried to persuade him otherwise, but he knew he was innocent. He spent a lot of time deflecting their verbal blows. That ongoing effort must have worn him down even further.
So Job went through crap, both figuratively and literally, since he was encamped on the trash heap.
I think we can all agree that Job went through crap.
He was a godly man with a good reputation and positive influence who went through devastation, rejection, physical pain and emotional shame all because of a wager made in heaven that he had nothing do to with. God wanted to prove something to Satan and used Job to do it.
Job got a bad rap. He didn’t deserve what he got. His setback was not the result of bad living, and he knew it.
His four buddies tried to persuade him otherwise, but he knew he was innocent. He spent a lot of time deflecting their verbal blows. That ongoing effort must have worn him down even further.
So Job went through crap, both figuratively and literally, since he was encamped on the trash heap.
And what was God doing during all this? Did he come to rescue Job from his misery?
It took Him long enough in our estimation, but He finally responded to Job’s complaints and questions. What is interesting is how He responded… He didn’t directly address Job’s questions at all. Yet Job ended up satisfied with His answer.
What Job went through was a season of pruning.
Pruning will most always feel wrong, feel bad, and cause us to consider ourselves and our ways. When everything seems to go upside down and we go through crap, there’s a reason for it. We’re being pruned.
Stuff that doesn’t matter is removed and we’re able to see that it really doesn’t matter. We’re caused to run after God more fervently with our implorings. We seek Him more deliberately because we can’t figure it all out and fix our situation. We simply have to just let all the balls we’ve been juggling drop to the ground and lie there. There’s nothing we can do. If we don’t rely on God we’re toast.
We cannot save ourselves. So God prunes us.
Unpleasant as it is, pruning is the thing that makes us more fruitful. We produce more fruit and better — more robust and beautiful — fruit because of it.
Seasons of crap are the fertilizer that nourish our fruit.
Difficult seasons become the strength-building nutrients that increase our strength and renew our determination. In God’s hands, the result of a pruning season is always better than before we were pruned. Pruning ensures our increase. It is not meant to defeat us. What appears to be a setback or disaster actually has consequences for our benefit.
Like Job’s friends, there will be people who come around us to analyze our situation and solve it for us. They’ll point out that we must have screwed up somewhere, or we don’t have enough faith, otherwise this wouldn’t be happening. They’ll want to rehearse all the details of our lives to determine what caused our demise.
These sorts of friends may not be encouraging, but they are participating in our pruning.
Did Job give in and cry uncle to his friends’ pressure to “’fess up? No. He stood on the solid ground of truth and did not accept their false accusations.
There’s a lesson there for each of us. There are times when setbacks are the consequences of our choices. But if you’re going through a season of crap — financially, emotionally, physically or spiritually — and it’s not due to what you’ve done, consider that God might just be pruning you, and that you’ll survive the season and emerge from the trash heap more full, satisfied and capable than ever.
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:1-2