Waiting For My Job 42

"Champion"

Bryan and Katie Torwalt

This song brings prayer back into perspective. He is the Champion of our prayers! 

For years I have been dreaming of my “Job 42” moment. In Job 42, God turns the captivity of Job in the direction of deliverance and double restoration.

And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. (Job 42:10, KJV)

I’ve weathered through some rough seasons, and I’m ready to see a change. I’m weary and finding it hard to see new life.  I guess that is why God keeps reminding me of Job’s story. Job was an overcomer. He was a man of great patience who weathered a horrific season of loss. But, when I look at his life, I see the bigger picture of God’s story. I am reminded that the world we live in is at war against the spirit of God who lives in us. So, if I want deliverance, I need to seek God for His strategies to overcome.

At the beginning of this year I felt God saying, This will be the year of fun.

Yes, God. It’s about time. I just want to rest and have fun for a season.

I then heard Him say, You will have to fight for it. Fight for fun? I had waited and waited AND waited for Him to bring me to this very moment, but I didn’t think I would have to fight for fun. I didn’t have anymore fight in me, but that was the very place God wanted to meet me.

I heard the Lord say, Julie where is your heart?

I replied, “I don’t even know.”

He said, You’re weary.

I said, “Why?”

And this is what He showed me.

For the past two years, I have been learning to pray and to be an intercessor for others. I had grown weary along the way because I wasn’t seeing the answers I was looking for. One day in prayer the Lord led me to a verse I thought I knew by heart, but when I read it from The Message it shifted my perspective.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (Matthew 11: 28-30, The Message)

I began to cry. I was tired and didn’t know the culprit was religion. In this season of learning to pray, I let go of joy and picked up something that was never mine to carry. That something was judgment.

My process up to this point was praying for circumstances to change. I was judging the way circumstances should play out. The posture of my heart was in the wrong place. I was telling God what to do, but He wanted me to see the position of my heart. Unanswered prayers led me to weariness and unbelief. I found myself not wanting to pray anymore. If it didn’t work, then why pray, right? I was frustrated. But I found hope in the frustration knowing it was His way of letting me know I have more to learn. I confessed my feelings of wanting to give up, and He began to teach me a new way.

As I leaned in to learn, the Holy Spirit kept reminding me of Job 42, but that was frustrating as I have been waiting for so long and it felt like it would never be true for me. In that frustration, I asked myself a question: What put deliverance and redemption into motion for Job?

IT WAS PRAYER.

Not just any prayer, but prayer that came from a heart that was prepared and ready to pray for mercy.

Think about the progression of events: Job’s suffering kept him searching for deliverance. With the help of his friends, he sifted through all the possible reasons for his unjust suffering. His friends concluded it was his own fault. They judged him. This was the moment God was waiting for so He could speak truth.

God asks Job, Where were you when I created the Heavens and Earth? Where were you when I told the sun to rise this morning? Where were you, where were you, where were you?

I never really enjoyed reading this part of Job’s story because it feels like God is mad. I can identify with Job and his pain; to have God reply in this manner seems harsh.

Until, this morning, when God changed my perspective.

What if God’s point in His explanation for Job’s suffering was to teach him what J-O-B was Job’s and what J-O-B was God’s?

God reveals His Glory and Majesty. He is the creator of all things, and He is the only One who has the authority to judge. God gives Job his J-O-B in this circumstance, and that is to simply pray for his friends. The ones who blamed him for his own suffering. The friends who thought their J-O-B was to judge. The friends who most likely planted unseen seeds of bitterness in Job’s heart. God’s remedy for redemption was to dig up the seeds of judgment before they took root. He promised to restore Job only after he prayed for the restoration of his friends.

This teaches me that God’s heart is always after redemption. My job is to align my heart with His, so I can pray for the mercy needed to set me and others free.

What if the whole point is to pray for mercy? Wouldn’t that make perfect sense? The world we live in today fell when Adam and Eve agreed to be their own judges. They were hoodwinked into biting the forbidden fruit of judgment. With just one bite, their eyes were open to see shame, and we’ve been judging and blaming God ever since.

I think God’s heart in all of this was for me to see that judgment was not my job. I kept praying for God to judge those who were sinning against me. He showed me how that can be a double-edged sword. If I’m demanding Him to judge others, He in return has to judge me the same. Do I really want judgment? Maybe, maybe not. But what I do know is if He’s asking me to pray to have mercy on others then I’m probably going to get mercy myself. I’m thinking that’s a much better deal in the long run.

This revelation has changed my perspective on prayer. Prayer is a process that will lead me into a deeper relationship with my Heavenly Father by asking Him first what His perspective is on the matter and how my heart needs to change so I can align with Heaven and bring His will to earth. I think this is going to stretch and grow me in a wonderful way. This year of fun will be full of pulling down mercy from above that may put into motion my Job 42 moment.

And the LORD turned the captivity of Julie Peck, when she prayed for her friends: also, the LORD gave Julie Peck twice as much as she had before.