Has God ever stripped you of something in your life? Chances are we all have. It might have been a relationship, a business, an opportunity, a job, a college scholarship, or something else. At some point, we lost something and, obviously, God was behind it.
When God takes away something from us, we can't deny it's going to be painful. It will cost us and we will most likely lose something that was valuable to us. It won't always make sense. In other words, when God strips something from us, it will be hard. But in that we can rely on God's sustenance, strength and sovereignty to work in us in such situations.
One of the most popular people who were stripped by God of many things was Job. When we examine his life, we will find out how we can respond when God strips us of something valuable.
Here are three ways we can react to being stripped by God.
1. Acknowledge That Everything Comes From The Grace Of God
In Job 1:21, the wealthy businessman gone bankrupt and family-less said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." Job fully understood that everything he had was the result of God's grace and generosity.
God gives us the ability to produce wealth. So even if he takes things from us and we don't understand why, we can trust that the same God who blessed us before can and will bless us again in the next season or the next life.
2. Remain Grateful, Not Remorseful
Job had it in him to still declare, "Blessed be the name of the LORD," after being stripped of everything he loved and owned. This shows his heart of gratefulness even in the direst circumstances.
I seriously doubt that majority of us are going through the same stripping that Job went through. We have no excuse not to be grateful. We must remember that in essence we deserved none of the things we now have or once had. All we deserved was hell and separation from God. But in God's goodness, He sent Jesus down to earth to qualify us of blessings that come simply by grace.
3. Remain Steadfast In Faith
Job 1:22 tells us, "Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God."
It's amazing that despite his great loss, Job remained in God and trusted him completely still. Humility causes us to put our full faith and trust in God alone. When He gives, we should be thankful and steward our resources well.
When he doesn't, we still hold on to God's faithfulness because His nature is good and desires only the best for us, even if it means having to take away something we currently have before giving us something completely new and better. As Romans 8:28 reminds us, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a] for those who are called according to his purpose."
