The book of Job.  It seems that when people are suffering it is the “go-to” book.  Job was a sufferer, and it is so helpful to my soul to see the ways in which he responded to that great suffering. So, I found myself in the book of Job again this morning when this verse jumped off of the page.

 Job 8:13-15 Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish.  His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider’s web.  He leans against his house, but it does not stand; he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.

Where am I putting my confidence thru this suffering in my life?  As I honestly evaluate my life these last 6 months, it is evident that many times during the day my confidence and hope are in my ability to get thru this, my strength to endure, or my wisdom to understand why this happened.  I place my confidence in things other than God.

As I look back on my life, it is obvious to me now that there were times I even placed my confidence in false theology such as; bad things don’t happen to good people.  I am a good person and I love God, so God will only give me blessings.  Because God loves me, everything will turn out the way I want it to. But it hasn’t.  I had put my hope and confidence in other things, they were not fixed on God alone, and they certainly were not based in truth.

This verse in Job reveals the serious problem with putting my confidence in things other than God, His word, His promises.  When my hope is waning and I lean on things other than the Lord, those things will give way as if I had leaned on a spider’s house.  My web, my refuge of misplaced confidences, will be swept away in the first strong wind, leaving me dangling without a fortress or refuge. Depending on anything other than God will not endure the test of this trial, this suffering.

So as a spider sits in the center of her web I must seek to place God in the center of my world, my pain, my suffering. I must place my hope and confidence in God alone, and in His promises, because it is the only thing I can lean upon that will not give way thru this suffering and it is the only thing that makes it possible to grieve with hope…