He Gives and Takes Away

"I'm forty and pregnant!" she wailed, as she filled out her new patient paperwork in the chiropractic office. A few tears escaped as she told us how she and her husband had just received the news of this unplanned pregnancy, and how drastically it would change their lives and all their plans. But then we saw her again two weeks later and her mourning had turned to dancing! She excitedly told us how they had come to believe that God had planned this baby, even if they had not, and what a great blessing it would be to their lives to have a new little one to love and raise. They were now having fun gathering things for the nursery. But today I got the shocking news of her miscarriage.

It leaves one reeling. Who can know the mind of the Lord? Job said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21)

In the days just ahead both believers and unbelievers will increasingly be asking the age-old question, "Why would a loving God permit such things to happen?" There will be ONE KEY to overcoming in these days: believing and trusting that the Holy One of Israel is sovereign, and not questioning what He allows. Daniel 4:35 says, "His dominion is an eternal dominion; His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: 'What have you done?'"

Today, June 10, the world news holds enough terrifying headlines to cause believers to doubt, and fall away:

• Aftershock in China displaces 5 million
• Floods in Illinois kill 15 and threaten survival of crops
• Denver hospitals conduct drills to prepare for chemical and biological attacks at the Democratic Convention
• Salmonella outbreak in 16 states

When we fully come to understanding that the four horses of Revelation 6 represent wars, famine, disease and death, then we must realize the horses are already riding! Revelation 6:6 says, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages!" Does that not sound pretty close to the truth when you look at the price of a loaf of bread these days?

So, what is my point? My point is that Yeshua (Jesus) has told us ahead of time about all these things, and yet many will hide their heads in the sand, many will do as Job's wife did and yell, "Curse God and die!" and the love of many will grow cold. But when Job went from being a prosperous, supremely happy husband and father of many children to an isolated, penniless old man with terrible disease he dared to ask God the "why" question, and the Sovereign Lord answered him in no uncertain terms: "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it? Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Which way is the way to the place where lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm to water a land where no man lives? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whom comes the ice? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons? Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?" (Job 38)

We do not have the answers to these things because we are not God. We must never aspire to be God or we are in the very place of Satan! And so I say to you, "Be at peace. Trust your Sovereign God. It is the only key to overcoming in the times of great trial and testing ahead. Those who overcome hold onto the Blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11).

My first child, a little girl, lived to be just under two weeks old. I got to hold her in my arms and rock and feed her, and then she was gone. Here is my testimony - it is the testimiony of Job and also of the 40-year-old woman who now mourns the loss of her baby. "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."