Integrity

Job 1-3; Psalm 37:12-29; Proverbs 21:25-26

 

When Job suffers all the horrible things he suffers, his wife reacts with amazement and scorn that he is holding on to his integrity. What did she mean by integrity?

 

She seems to have been talking about Job’s willingness to receive anything—good or bad—from God’s hands. Job’s response to the first disasters was this:

 

Naked I came from my mother's womb,

    and naked I will depart.

  The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;

    may the name of the LORD be praised. – Job 1:21

 

And after Job’s body was afflicted with painful sores, he still refused to curse God. That was his wife’s accusation, anyway: “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die (Job 2:9)!” Job’s response to her also indicates that she was complaining about his willingness to receive affliction without questioning God:

 

You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? – Job 2:10

 

Integrity for those who claim that God is praiseworthy is continuing to say that God is praiseworthy even when His sovereign decisions allow us and our loved ones to get hurt. God is not good one day and unreliable the next. Job recognized that, despite the fact that his circumstances had changed. Job could tell the difference between a change in his circumstances and a change in the character of His God. May we be able to do the same and have the integrity he had here.

 

Father, please don’t let painful circumstances deceive me or anyone else into thinking You have changed and that you’re no longer good. May we have integrity in the way we think about You. In our minds and hearts, may we always know—even when we can’t understand why—that you are praiseworthy, trustworthy and good.