Come Forth As Gold

November 7

Thou man of Uz, thou just and good, thou blameless in God’s sight How blessed have been thy years of God—in thee He doth delight. In thee the Lord hath made His boast before His angel dark-- The evil one doth then refute the Lord’s high praise remark.

“Not without cause Thy servant Job doth fast adhere to Thee! Thy hedge, the shelter of Thy wing, Thy blessings full and free
Cause him to bow before Thy face and bend unto Thy will. Draw back Thy hand—let me assail—see if he love Thee still!”

So God withdrew His hedge from round both Job and all his kin
Allowed the waster to destroy where boundless wealth had been! His children’s deaths, his wife’s despair, the cup of blessing dry, In anguish cries she out to Job, “Why not curse God and die!” Why not the final blow upon this anguished living death? Why not take all this poor man has, including life’s last breath?

Ah, Job, my heart goes out to thee—I read thy tale and weep. The wretched sores that scourge thy flesh, though only surface deep,
Probe far into thy heart and mind! They rot not just thy flesh, But gnaw away thy trust in God and put thy faith to test!
Thy friends with counsel void of love come at thee with their rod-- Correction laid upon thy sores, purportedly from God! They neither see nor understand that God is by thy side, That through thy very darkest hour, He yet with thee abide. Their minds have failed to apprehend how God man’s faith doth try--
Like gold placed in refiner’s fire that it may purify!

Like thee, O Job, so we today, afflicted, tempest-tossed At times feel stricken by God’s hand, cast off from Him and lost!
But we, too, need to stand the test, to trust and never bend; To know our Lord is by our side, our constant Help and Friend. To know that like Job long before, in his trials’ fiery blast We, too, shall come forth as pure gold when this brief test is past. And when from flesh our life depart, our earthly sojourn o’er, Like Job, in victory we’ll stand, more blessed than e’er before!