Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Ambition, Approval
- Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive. When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus. But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.
- Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted. When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place. But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.
In this
chapter, Job stumbles. I can’t say that
I blame him. Here is a man whose life has
been ripped from him. He’s had to be a
stalwart against the crushing opposition of his friends as they tried to
convince him that he is to blame. Is
there any doubt that eventually he would stumble?
Job’s
words in this chapter tell us that the perspective of his friends is getting to
him. He is beginning to equate his own
desire for ambition with the approval of God.
When Job says, “when God watched over me,” he’s showing us that he’s
feeling as though God only watches over him when his life is going well and he
is successful. This is a shame.
Don’t get
me wrong. We’re all human. I can’t help feeling for Job here. But we should remember that God watches over
us at all times. He walks with us –
especially in the bad times. This simply
is who God is. We may feel as though God
is far from us, but that is an error of our perspective rather than a statement
of reality. Just because we want to
equate God’s approval with our own ambition doesn’t mean that God isn’t there
walking with us in our darkest moments of life.
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