When God Takes Away

How exciting it is when God gives us blessings to make life enjoyable! We have no problem praising him out of the joy of our hearts when he blesses us! We excitedly tell our family and friends how God has blessed us and how great he is. Our step is lighter and the joy is apparent in the unending smile we wear as we recount those blessings!

However, how do we react when God chooses to take something away? I know the first thing we tend to do out of flesh is pout and become angry at God. We somehow think, “How dare he take something of mine!” Something WE worked hard for, something WE value and/or something WE loved! Why would a loving God do something that sometimes seems unfair or unloving?

No matter what happens, may we be like Job, who lost everything, and I mean literally everything, and yet he said, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21) In this case, God allowed all of Job’s possessions and family to be taken by Satan, who asked God for permission to sift Job, thinking that once everything was taken away, Job would turn away from God and curse him. However, as Job 1:21 proves, he still praised God and remained faithful to him! Not because he thought he would get something out of it, but because of his deep love and devotion to the Lord.

I have not quite reached that point where I willingly and automatically say “Blessed be the name of the Lord” when I feel that God has taken something from me (or when he has allowed something to be taken from me), because I have already lost so very much throughout this life. However, when I get back to my senses and get my head back on straight, I remember that everything belongs to God in the first place and in spite of what I have lost, he has also blessed me with a lot. Joel 2:25 says that he will restore to us all that the locusts have taken from us.

Throughout my 40+ years of life, I have learned that sometimes the Lord takes things away from me in order to give me something better. I may sometimes think I have been blessed with something pretty good and am never at a loss for words when I thank God for his blessings. However, that thing which I call “good” may turn out not to be so good for me down the road and there sometimes comes a time where I must be willing to hand something over to a sovereign God knowing that he will still see to it that I am taken care of.

After a lost childhood, a lost marriage, more than one lost jobs, lost friends (who walked away when things got difficult in my life) and lost opportunities, I know about loss. There have been times throughout my life where I have questioned God and cried out to him, asking why so much has been taken from me for what seems like no good reason, some things I really cherished. I still do not know the answer as to why these things were taken from me, but I can say that when I really thought about it, I could see how God had restored things to me that were taken, but just in a different form. (For example, a lost marriage resulted in two amazing kids that I have had the joy and privilege to raise and love).

Right now in my life, I am having to step out in faith BIG TIME as the Lord has revealed to me that I need to move because I have been floundering in the city where I am now living. One part of me is terrified! I have been in this amazing house that God blessed me with through a series of miracles ten years ago and for that reason I have become attached to this house. It was one of the most special blessings God has given me, so why would he tell me I need to move? Eventually, I may see the reason but even if I do not, I need to trust him and be willing to let go of something that I have cherished for ten years. The other part of me knows that God is absolutely correct and that there really is nothing here for me as I have been going from one low paying job to another and even my boys are struggling to find jobs here. We are no better off than we were ten years ago as I thought I would be. I lost my previous job when my boss retired and sold his practice to another doctor, who had his own staff. The only job I could find after months of looking gave me a big fat pay cut, but I had to take something, which was better than no job at all. In that case, I still do not understand why I had to lose something so big (to a single mom, a job that pays decent is very important), only to take a lower paying job with no chance for advancement.

Why would this happen to a child of God? Maybe it is the fact that my hours were cut to 30 hours a week and my body really needed a rest after previously working three part-time jobs with the doctor who retired. Maybe it was because the Lord knew that the people who worked in this office needed me to minister to them in some way. Or, it could be that the Lord was slowly cutting my ties to this area to open my eyes to see I really have very little here to stay for and it would have been too hard for me to leave if I had a great job with great pay and everything was going well. I may not have obeyed the Lord so quickly by immediately starting to get the house I love so much ready to put on the market. He always has a purpose for everything he does under the sun, even if things look bad from our end.

The other part of me is very excited for this new adventure! I know deep down that God will be with me and go before me, even though I am still afraid that he may not provide a great job and another great place to live after we move. If truth be told, it is a constant battle in my mind right now, especially when those memories of all I have lost in the past comes to mind and I am afraid of losing more by taking this faith step. I go back and forth between being excited to see how God is going to work all of this out and being afraid of losing yet more and again, being no better off than I have been after doing all of this work to prepare to move out of state.

Although this has been a very emotionally trying time for me, I just have to firmly plant my feet in the one who has promised he will be with me, whether I have everything or have nothing. I have to keep in mind all that he has already done for me and the miracles he has done in my life and wait expectantly for him to do more miracles as I take this big faith step ahead. And if I am still no better off after the move, may I still have the strength to say as Job did, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away, but blessed be the name of the Lord!”