life can be a roller coaster

As Jesus rode towards Jerusalem on a donkey a jubilant and welcoming crowd greeted him.  The account in Matthew describes the scene:

“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’
‘Hosanna in the highest!’”

(Matt 21:8-9, NIV)

A few days later the crowds shouted for Jesus to be crucified. (Matt 27:20-23).

It’s funny how circumstances can go from good to bad so quickly.  And it wasn’t only Jesus who faced such dramatic turns for the worse: Job lost his children (all ten of them) and his vast wealth in a single day, and then lost his health; Joseph went from being the favourite son of Jacob to a slave in a foreign land, then rose from slave to head of his master’s household, only to land in prison after being falsely accused.

None of these people did anything terrible to warrant such an awful turn of events.  God wasn’t angry with them, he wasn’t punishing them, and he certainly hadn’t abandoned them.  The stories of Jesus, Job and Joseph all end in triumph, and stand as testament to God’s divine purposes.

When disaster hits our life, it’s easy to question God and ourselves.  Job certainly had many questions he wanted to put to God for all that he was going through.  He didn’t get much help from his friends, who blamed him and accused him of some moral failure because they couldn’t otherwise reconcile a good and just God with Job’s predicament.

But I don’t believe that God’s sovereign provision and protection upon us stops bad things from happening.  I do, however, believe this:

“A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all” (Ps 34:19, NIV)

– Joseph Koh

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