In Junior high, I was experimenting. I was playing football for school and I was in the school band. I didn’t know anything about either so I was giving both a shot. The band director gave me the French horn to play, which is a hard instrument. Every day at football practice, I thought about throwing in the towel since I was so small. Eventually, the band director, Mr. Hicks, told me I needed to choose: it’s either football or band Hall; which do you choose. So I gave up on band and dedicated the rest of my years (7-12 grades) playing football. It was the right choice for me.
Each one of us have moments in our life when we have to choose. There are difficulties and hardships. When hard moments come, it’s the enemy, Satan, trying to get you to choose to give up your relationship with God and other people. Jesus said that the enemy came to kill, steal and destroy. That’s all Satan cares about.
One dude in the Old Testament who experienced the full force of choices was a guy named Job. His story is one of the oldest recorded stories in the Bible. Job was very blessed by God. Job worshiped God every day and kept God in the primary place in his life. Job had lots of wealth, property and a huge family with 10 children. But Satan wanted to press Job into leaving his relationship with God so Satan created difficulty and chaos.
Satan had groups of people come in and steal all his livestock and kill all his servants. Satan also created a storm that destroyed the house all ten children were in, killing all of them. But even after all of that destruction, Job 1:20-21 says that Job worshiped God.
My guess is you also have had tough moments in your life. Maybe your marriage is not in a good place right now or your adult children are walking away from God. It could be your working through a prolonged illness or cancer treatments. Maybe you were hit hard in the market and investments and now you realize you’ll need to work a few more years before retiring. It could be you’ve been carrying around the shame and guilt from past mistakes, unaltered habits, or secret sin. These all are difficult moments where you must make a choice.
But like Job, we must realize your story doesn’t have to be defined by what happens to you; it should be defined by how you respond. As a follower of Jesus, we know difficult life moments are going to come. That’s a promise. Like Job, we must realize the script is already written for us in how we respond. Don’t buy the lie from Satan that you should just give up. Don’t let him sway you from the truth that Jesus has given us.
Like Job in chapter 19, we can say, “I know that my Redeemer lives!”. Jesus told us he’ll never leave us nor forsake us. He’s with us until the end. There are going to be storms in our lives. It’s just Satan trying to get us to walk away from our relationships with those we love, including God.
So, stay the course. Be resolute. Don’t back down. Make the choice to continue to walk with God through the storm. He’s with you. He’s got you by the hand and he’s not letting go. Blessings on the journey.