Sooner or later, if you live long enough, you’ll have to face personal failure or some other incident that brings you face to face with an unusual moment of clarity. This is the point at which many a lost person will turn to God, and many a backslidden Christian repent.
Either way, as much as it all hurts, it’s for our ultimate good.
Sometimes we have to hit bottom before we will look up. The prodigal son in Luke 15 had such a moment of clarity.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Luke 15:17-20
Sometimes we simply need to learn that God is in control. Such was Job’s moment of clarity.
Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Job 42:1-6
Sometimes we need to understand what is important. In Solomon’s moment of clarity he discovered this.
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 1:1-3
Perhaps you have had such moments of clarity. I know that I have. I am grateful to God for each of them. They each brought me closer to Him. As the prodigal child, I remembered that God never leaves me. Looking back, I see His love for me. As Job, I figured out that I have to play by God’s rules, but He has my best interest at heart. As Solomon, I found out that every material thing I once thought of as treasure really means very little. The only truly important thing is my relationship with God.
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to look at your life and think about your prodigal child, Job, and Solomon moments. If you have not had them, may you learn those lessons without living through them. If you have had them, may you remember the lessons you learned. We may not ever know what that reason was, but each trial we go through in life is there for a reason.
Let us simply be thankful that God loves us enough to draw us closer to Him, and that He loved us enough to send Jesus to pay for our sins.