"Job's Wife"

"Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die." Job 2:9

When you read the story of Job, did you ever wonder why God didn't allow Job's wife to be taken from him? After all, he lost all his livestock, his servants, his children and his health- he lost everything except his wife. Of all the things that the Lord could have left him with, why did He leave a wife that was anything less than edifying, why leave him with someone who was going to discourage him by encouraging him to curse God and die? Why didn't He at least leave him with someone who could help comfort him, someone who would minister to him, someone who would pray with him and help lift his burden?

The answer is not clear until you look at the end of the book. "He had also seven sons and three daughters." (Job 42:1) When God restored everything that Job lost, the restoration included children. Let me ask you a question: How was God going to give Job back children without someone to bare those children? God kept Job's wife because she was the instrument through which part of Job's restoration and his blessing was going to come.

It makes me think about Paul's thorn in the flesh. Paul prayed for it's removal but God didn't remove it. What seemed as a "bad" thing to Paul was actually an instrument used by God to bring something greater into Paul's life.

Sometimes those things that we think are a "curse" in our life, sometimes those things that we think the Lord should take away, sometimes those things in our lives that look like they are against us, are actually the very thing that God is going to use to bring a blessing into our lives through. Job's wife was part of the restoration process. The thorn in Paul's flesh was an instrument to cause the power of Christ to rest upon him. That thing in your life that you think is a hindrance or obstacle to God's plan for your life may actually be part of the process to bring about God's plan for your life.

Have a great day. What looks like a curse, may actually be the thing that brings the blessing.