What does Job 10:2 teach us in When We Ask God Why?

In this expository sermon on Job 10, Dr. Toby Holt of New Geneva Theological Seminary teaches that the believer's cry of 'why?' in suffering is not a sign of failed faith but a lament God is big enough to receive. Because God is sovereign and good even when His providence is inscrutable, Holt shows that Job, Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, David, and Paul all asked 'why?'—and that God uses such trials to refine faith, works all things for good, and in Christ empathizes with our grief. This is a Reformed treatment of the problem of suffering, divine providence, and the comfort of Christ's sympathy grounded in Job 10:2.

Questions this sermon answers:

1. What is the main issue in this passage? In this expository sermon on Job 10, Dr.

2. How does this text point us to Christ? It shows the need for God's grace and the hope fulfilled in the gospel.

3. How should Christians respond? With faith, repentance, and renewed trust in the Lord's Word.

"I will say to God, Do not condemn me; Show me why You contend with me." - Job 10:2 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

Has something ever happened that you just don't understand?

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Has your world ever been turned upside down and you don't know why?

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That was Job's experience.

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In chapter 10, Job has been hurt and confused by his circumstances,

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and he's going to turn to God for answers.

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Has there ever been something that's happened to you that you just don't understand?

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have you ever experienced that tension when some calamity befell you something that you did not

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bring upon yourself something that just happened may a diagnosis something that upended your world

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maybe caused you to think through matters of faith in ways that you had never done before

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has something ever happened that you've had trouble even now reconciling with your expectations of god

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and what he should do and yet what he did do most of us know that tension we don't always own up to

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it, but we know that tension. Some of us might even be experiencing it right now. We know that

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God is good. We know that God is there. We know that he's in charge. We know the word God really

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means God. And if God equals God, then again, we look at a circumstance, a calamity, an illness,

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a difficulty, maybe even a death, and we don't get it. And so the question on our lips is the

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same question the prophets asked and the same question Job asked. It's the question, why? Why,

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if you love me has this happened? Why, oh Lord, why? Well, if you've asked that question, perhaps

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if you're even asking that question this day on some level, then be encouraged to know at least

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this much as we start. Job asked the same thing. Job was the most righteous man on the planet.

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That's not a small thing to say. He was the most righteous man on planet earth in the time that he

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lived. And yet he knew what it was like to experience a difficulty and try to reconcile

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or have to reconcile that difficulty with the fact that God is good.

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And Job was not alone in this.

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Moses, Jeremiah, David, Daniel, Paul, the list goes on.

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In fact, every great man or woman of faith has experienced these same moments.

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If God loves me, why did this terrible thing happen?

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Did I do something to deserve it?

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Am I being punished?

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If you've ever asked those questions,

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we're going to try to filter those very questions through Job's questions

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and see if we can come to some conclusions.

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All right, I'm going to go ahead and reread verses 1 through 7,

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then we'll look at those verses, and then work our way through the balance of the text.

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Verse 1, this is Job speaking. He says this. He says,

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My soul loathes my life. My soul loathes my life. I will give free course to my complaint.

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I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, do not condemn me. Show me why.

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This is one of many times that word why comes up. Show me why. Why you contend with me. Remember,

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he's standing on his righteousness. He says, I don't deserve this. Show me why you contend with

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me. Does it seem good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise me, the work of

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your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as man sees?

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Are your days like the days of a mortal man? Are your years like the days of a mighty man, that you

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should seek for my iniquity, search up my sin, although you know I'm not wicked, and there's no

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one who can deliver me from your hand. All right, let's stop there. That is a fascinating and

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difficult prayer to utter. Now, before I even examine that, let me say this much. God can take

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whatever prayers you bring to him, even if they come with hurt on your heart. God's a big enough

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God to sustain what you bring to him, even if what you bring to him is couched in words of grief

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and sorrow and lament and questions and anxieties and fears. God didn't love Job any less because he

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asked of the hurts of his heart. With that said, it didn't mean that everything Job says here or

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elsewise in the book was correct. With that said, in verse 1, very first verse, he made a very strong

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statement. Specifically, he said this. He said, my soul loathes my life. In the vernacular, what's

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he saying? He's saying, I wish I was dead. He just says, God, I wish I was dead. And if you fast

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forward to the end of verse 18, he's going to say the same thing in different words. Both cases,

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he's saying, God, it would be better off if I simply wasn't here rather than to undergo what

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I'm undergoing. My soul loads my life. The fact I'm taking another breath today gives me no comfort.

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Man alive, you've got to be some kind of broken, some kind of hurt to be in a position where you'd

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prefer death over living another day under the circumstances that you're currently living.

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Now, with that said, let's stop it. Is Job just being a drama queen? Is he making a mountain out

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of a molehill. You know, sometimes we do that. Sometimes, oh, woe is me, you know. When I was

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younger, I remember I was a teenager and everything that comes upon your plate, oh, the end of the

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world is upon me, right? Sometimes, sometimes we take small grievances and concerns and inflate

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them into something bigger than they really are. Is that what Job is doing here? Is he just

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overstating his problems? Dear heavens, no. Read the first nine chapters. You can see every bad

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thing that could happen, happened to Job. He lost just about everything you can lose while still

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remaining alive. He lost loved ones and possessions and lands and forests and flocks and fields and

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everything. He lost his health to the degree that he's literally just sitting there in the dirt

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with sores of boils covering his body, scraping his sores with a broken piece of pottery in order

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to give himself some comfort. That's where this man was at the time that he utters these very words

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in chapter 10. He is a broken man who has lost virtually everything that he had. Now, as he sat

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there in the dirt trying to figure out what's going on the problem that he had was that he knew

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he was fairly righteous i mean it's not a surprise to righteous people they're righteous they should

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be humble about it it's okay to be humble if you're righteous but he knew he was righteous

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and he hadn't done that which was wrong so that really really affected his thinking because his

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understanding was that bad things happen to bad people and exclusively to bad people his

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understanding was that now if i'd done something wrong god i could understand your punitive hand

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coming down upon me, but I haven't. Show me, show me, show me what I've done. If I've done something,

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God, show me. That's what he's asking these verses. Show me. I'm begging you. Tell me why I'm in this

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position. Explain it to me, God, because I don't get it. So that's what he's asking there in these

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verses. Now, what we're going to find in the book of Job, or at least what you'll find if you go

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through the book of Job, is that he has friends who show up. And I say the word friends kind of

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loosely. You know, with friends like these, who needs enemies, right? You read the book of Job,

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you'll see his friends show up and they sit there and after he's done speaking, they pour out their

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wisdom upon him. I'll use wisdom in air quotes. They pour out their wisdom upon him. The things

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they have to say, man alive, they just do him no help. They're just the worst sort of input and

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advice. And part of the reason it's just terrible advice that his friends are giving him is because

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his friends were telling him the same thing that he was telling himself, which is bad things should

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only happen to bad people. If you've read the book of Job, you remember his friends come to him and

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they basically tell Job, they say, Job, you're not being honest here. There's no way what's

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happened to you would have happened to you if you're not hiding some secret sins. No way. No

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way. Sin equals suffering. Sin equals suffering. They only understood suffering through the lens

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that you did something to deserve it. You did something to deserve it. Frankly, that was Job's

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mentality too. And he says, I didn't do anything. So they argue back and forth. His friends say,

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yes, you did. And he says, no, I didn't for chapter after chapter after chapter. But his

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friends thought that the only reason that he could be undergoing such a thing was because he was

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evil, wicked, or bad. I tell you, that's simply not the case. If something terrible has befallen

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you, it's not necessarily, although it could be, but it's not necessarily because you've done

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something wrong. You think of Daniel thrown into the lion's den. Did he deserve it? Shadrach, Meshach,

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and Abednego, did they deserve to be thrown into a fiery furnace? Paul in jail, Paul whipped, Paul

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beaten, Paul shipwrecked, Paul martyred. Did they deserve it? No, of course not. And yet that's what

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his friends are insisting is true of Job, that he deserved it. All right, let's look at verses 8

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through 12. Verse 8, he's still speaking out of the hurts in his heart. He says, God, your hands

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have made me and fashioned me, an intricate utility. You can just imagine him kind of looking

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at his own construction, an intricate utility, and yet you would destroy me. Remember, I pray,

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you've made me like clay. Will you turn me into dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and

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curled me like cheese and clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and

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sinews. You've granted me life and favor and your care has preserved my spirit. The artist

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Michelangelo, Michelangelo, he had been working on one particular project, one particular piece

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of art, one particular piece of marble for a period of about eight years. And one day Michelangelo

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gets up out of bed, he takes a mallet in his hand, he goes up to this piece of artwork and he begins

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to shatter it. He begins to destroy it. And history records that those who were aware of what he was

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doing were shocked. Dismay. How could he do this? He spent years working on this piece. He poured

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himself into it. He worked long into the night, you know, with candles, liquoring, while he's

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carefully working on this thing. And ultimately, he wakes up one day and he just decides to shatter

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it, just decides to break it down. The questions that Michelangelo's friends and acquaintances had

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with regards to what in the world Michelangelo was doing is sort of what Job is asking here of God.

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He says, God, God, you've spent a lot of time making me the man I am. You fashioned me. You

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formed me. You appointed my days. Any good thing that I've done in times past was done through

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your volition. You've given me all these years of life to get thus far. You've poured yourself

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into me, and yet for reasons I don't get, you're like Michelangelo destroying his own marble.

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you're destroying me, and I don't understand it, given how much time you committed to building me

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and making me the man that I am. It seemed counterintuitive, is what Job was saying. It's

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counterintuitive. I don't get it. I don't get how you could do such a thing. How does this work? Are

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you a God who changes on a dime? Because that's sort of what it's feeling like, is roughly what

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he's saying. He doesn't understand how God could have fashioned his life so intricately and then

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just set it on fire, so to speak. Have you ever woken up on a similar day and felt that way?

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Have you ever been experiencing a life that is just going along really well?

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Maybe even just average. Let's say average.

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But then something terrible happens, whether you're going well or average or what have you,

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or every shade in between.

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You wake up one day and you get that phone call.

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You wake up one day and there's a car accident.

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You wake up one day and there's something that's happened.

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And your world is just shattered.

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And things will never be the same.

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It'll never be what it once was.

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You ever wonder, you know, how did this happen?

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Everything was going along so well.

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I've gotten to this stage of life.

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Everything's been moving along.

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God loves me. I love God. I'm trying my best here. He sees it. For reasons I don't get, here we are.

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And there are some things that can happen in your life that don't get reversed. Again,

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how do you process that? If God is good and if he's in charge, if God equals signs God,

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how do you process that? Well, before we try to answer that to the degree we can answer that,

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let's attach now the remainder of Job's questions in verses 13 through 18, and then we'll try to

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to package some conclusions. Verses 13 through 18. Now God, these things you have hidden in your

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heart. I know that this was with you. If I sin, then you mark me. You'll not acquit me of my

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iniquity. If I'm wicked, woe to me. Even I'm righteous now. I can't lift up my head, let alone

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if I was a sinner. Even when I'm righteous, look what's happening to me. I'm full of disgrace. See

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my misery. If my head is exalted, you hunt me like a fierce lion. You show yourself awesome against

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me. He felt like a hunted man based on what was going on in his world. You renew your witnesses

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against me. You increase your indignation toward me, charges the war ever with me. Why then have

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you ever brought me out of the womb? This gets back to his original point. I wish I was dead.

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Why have you brought me out of the womb? Why was I ever born? Oh, that I had perished and no eye

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had ever seen me. I don't know whether you've ever experienced one of those moments. I wish

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I was never born. God, take me home now. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. God willing,

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you haven't or won't. But let me tell you something. If you ever do, know this much. You are in very

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good company with people in the pages of scripture and not just Job. Moses. You know, everyone loves

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Moses now. Like if you go to Israel and talk about Moses and there's a great reverence, oh Moses,

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Moses, right? Moses means everything. Moses has meant a great deal to the Jews across the centuries.

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But you know what's ironic? In the time in which Moses lived, no one liked him. In the time in which

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Moses was alive, the people around Moses just couldn't stand the guy. They accused him all the

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time. They said, you let us out. You left us for dead. You're doing this thing wrong. You're doing

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that thing wrong. He's up the mountain a little too long. They're like, whew, I guess he's not

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coming back now on with our regular scheduled programming. Even his own brother and sister

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would complain about old Moses. Remember Miriam had the leprosy of the hand and so forth. Moses

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was not terribly loved in his day. And in Numbers chapter 11, he grows tired of this. He's trying to

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do what God would have him do. He's desperately trying to do what God would have him do. In

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chapter 11 of Numbers, he says to God, he says, kill me now. He says, kill me now. That's exactly

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what he says in Numbers chapter 11. Just kill me now. Elijah, 1 Kings 19, similar issues. Elijah's

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a prophet of God. Elijah is another man who is beloved in the present day. Do you know who they

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leave a seat over in modern Jewish Passovers? They leave one chair open. Who's it open for?

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Elijah, right? Everyone, Elijah, right? But Elijah, when he was alive, no one loved Elijah.

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When Elijah was alive, everyone despised Elijah. They treated him terribly and the like. He's just

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trying to do God's work. He's just trying to teach the people and the like. They could not stand

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Elijah. And what happens is after that big event on 1 Kings chapter 18, the fire comes down on

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Mount Carmel. Elijah thinks, well, now, now that God has shown himself to be the Jehovah, the God

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of our ancestors. And he's demonstrated that the pagan gods are worthless. Now everything's going

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to go right. Now God has shown up. The fire has come down. We're going to get with the program

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here in Israel. Well, wrong. Just a couple of days later, what happens? He's running for his life

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because Jezebel's assassins have been sent to kill him. And he ends up under a broom tree,

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under a sickle tree, and he can't figure it out. He doesn't get it. He asked God, why, why, why,

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why, why? You're God. These are your people. You just showed yourself powerful. You've appointed

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me to be a prophet to the people. I understand all these different things, and what I don't

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understand is why I'm here having to hide from Jezebel's assassins who are trying to kill me

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if you're good and you're in charge. Why is this going on? Kill me now. Kill me now. Jeremiah,

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Jeremiah chapter 15. The prophet was dead tired. He's just standing alone, and he asked God the

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same question that Job asked here. He says, God, why was I ever born? If this is what I've been

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appointed to, and it's just so miserable. I wake up, and it's just, I have nightmares when I sleep.

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I wake up, and it's more of the same. God, why was I ever born? Paul, 2 Corinthians 1. Paul said this,

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that the persecution he was facing at that time, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, caused him and his fellow

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disciples to despair of life itself. Do you see a common theme? I could go on. Do you see the theme?

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There are many times when some of the most beloved, awesome champions of the faith in Scripture,

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some of the people that we revere the most felt the way that maybe you felt last week or last

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month or last year, broken, hurting, and asking God the question, why? If it's any consolation

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to know this, God used those moments of why as mechanisms to refine the very people who are

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asking the question. When Elijah asked God why, and he's crying, he's literally weeping under a

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sycamore tree in the desert, God sends ministering angels to him, which is cool how that works.

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God's not sitting there aloof and different with his arms folded to see how you do.

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He comes alongside you in the midst of your griefs and your hurts

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ever a bit as much as Jesus came alongside those who were grieving when Lazarus died,

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and he weeps along them.

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So he sends ministering angels to Elijah, but ultimately Elijah,

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he leads them to kind of a cleft in the rock, so to speak, there at Sinai, I would believe.

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He leads Elijah to this place, and then he shows his power.

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He shows his might, the same might that Job was talking about in verses 8 through 12.

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he shows might there's fire there's earthquakes there's lightning and storms and all this

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so god demonstrates yes elijah i'm the god who can do anything you're right about that

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i can do anything and if i want to do it it will be done look at my power but then in a still

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small voice almost like a whisper in elijah's ears after all the shaking and tumult has occurred

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and the most intimate way in a still small voice god whispers to elijah and to paraphrase he says

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this. He says, Elijah, you are never alone. It was never as bad as you think it is. You think you're

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isolated. You think that you're the only one. There's many thousands who have not bent the knee

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to the bales. And I am working even in this. And I have a plan. And it may not be the plan that you

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like, recognize, understand, or want. But trust me, it's a good plan. It's a good plan. And I'm

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working it out, even in the midst of the very turmoil and hurt that you're experiencing right

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now. If this is true of Elijah, if this is true of Jeremiah, if this is true of Moses, if this is true

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of David and Paul and others, if you ever wake up one morning and your world has just been uprooted

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so it seems, understand that again you're in the greatest company and also understand this,

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that God is with you as you're facing these things. And you're no more alone than Elijah was

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even when he thought that God was a million miles away at that moment and indifferent to what he was

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going through. As we look to wrap up this morning, let me add a couple other thoughts that might

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encourage our hearts when we're in those moments like Job, when we're asking, why, why, why, why

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are these things happening? Why did this one thing happen? Why did this 20 things happen? Why, why,

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why? Well, number one, remember this. Remember where you're at. Sometimes we get confused. We

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think that this is like the garden now, or this is heaven now. And we think that somehow, in the

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midst of all this beauty, I mean, we look out, it's pretty nice. Outside the humidity and the deer

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flies. It's just wonderful out here today. But we look at the world around us and we can be fooled

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for a moment. We say, this is pretty good, right? And then something bad happens. You leave the

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parking lot and your car gets hit. You run over a dog. Something happens and you're reminded,

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you're jolted back to reality that maybe this world isn't as great as you thought it was.

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We can fool ourselves into trying to carve out utopia in the midst of a war zone. But the

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reminder of scripture time and time again is that it is a war zone. And because it's a war zone that

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you're living out your days upon, don't be surprised when you sustain battle scars. Don't be

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surprised when it happens, because it will, because that's a function of the very environment in which

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you live. However, you will not be forever. That's my second point. Life is short, but eternity is

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long. Whatever difficulty you're facing this week, imagine the greatest difficulty you could face

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happening to you on a Monday, but then imagine Jesus comes back on Tuesday. Do you think you

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could endure that terrible thing if you knew you only had to endure it for one day, that loss, that

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grievance, that heartache, that hurt, if you knew that Jesus was coming back and he's going to fix

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everything and wipe away every tear within 24 hours, I think we could probably steady ourselves

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for Monday if we knew that Tuesday was coming. Well, here's the thing. Tuesday is coming. Jesus

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is coming back. Whether you go to him or he comes to you, one way or another, there's a lot of gray

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hair in this room. One way or another, it's happening not too far in the distant future.

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a day is coming. It's been appointed in the nearest of near terms, really, by which all of

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the hurts and grievances that we have will be removed from us. The tears will be wiped away,

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and that's not that far off. When you can kind of see your life through that lens. Remember what we

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just sang in Amazing Grace? When we've been there 10,000 years by shining as the sun? The idea is

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if we're there 10,000 years, then we have no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.

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If that's true then, if we're going to be there 10,000 years, and that's but a hair's breadth of

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what eternity looks like, then dear good gravy, the here and now has got to be nothing. Whatever

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you're facing right now, no matter how harsh it is, remember this, it will end in just moments

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of time, so to speak. The here and now, even if you should live to be a hundred years old, the here

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and now is but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of eternity. Bear that in mind when you

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consider the anxieties and the hurts of this day. Thirdly, remember this, you're not alone. That was

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Elijah's concerns. He felt alone. And yet David, in those moments when he felt alone, he was reminded

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of this, that yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why?

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Because thou art with me. David had a lot of moments. There was palace intrigue going on all

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the time around David. People wanted to kill him to the left and to the right. It wasn't just Goliath.

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His own son, Absalom, others came against him regularly. David was a hunted man even though he

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was in royalty david was a hunted man even though he was a powerful man and so frequently he was

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walking through the valley of the shadow of death now if he had to walk through that by himself

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then man that would be no fun sometimes we think that we're walking through these diagnosis and

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this hardship and this chemo and these other things by ourselves the truth is that although

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we're walking through the valley shadow of death no matter how many steps we take in it whether

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it's one ten twelve a hundred god is with us as we do so his rod and staff and his presence they

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comfort us, and that's something to be reminded of, even when our world seems to be falling apart,

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that right there, God is with us. It's not like he's just right there next to us. He's literally

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carrying us through the midst of what we were going on. Number four, remember this, your trials

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refine your faith. They're there for a reason. It's not an accident. Job, Paul, Elijah, Jeremiah, David,

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Moses, guess what? They grew. Their faith grew under fire. If you had asked them whether they

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wanted the calamities that they faced, they would have all said no to a man. And yet, in retrospect,

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if they were to look back at their lives from the deathbed, I'm not sure they would have wanted

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anything different, because they knew that their very trials made them the individuals that they

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were. Look, everything that's happened to you has not necessarily been fun or enjoyable, and yet,

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the confluence of all the things that ever happened to you, every choice that you've made,

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and the choices that other people have made, have led you to this very day, in this very building,

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this very morning, to hear God's Word. God's doing something in your life, using all that

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brokenness somehow to bring together a conductive stream in his will to something that is good,

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to an outcome that is better than you would otherwise choose for yourself. If you could

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have only had those things in your life that you really, really wanted for yourself and that you

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could have avoided all the hardships. Like you told God, have you ever gone bowling with small

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kids? You take like, you know, five-year-old kids bowling. You remember they have these things now,

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they didn't have it when I was, you know, when I was growing up, you know. Back then, you know,

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you're a five-year-old, you roll the ball and it goes in the gutter and you cry, right? Well now,

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we don't want kids to cry, so what exists at Bowling Eyes? That's right, the bumpers. You

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push this button, boop, and these bumpers go up, and then a kid can just give the worst roll in

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the world. As long as it's got any momentum, it'll bang against and eventually hit the pins,

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right? Sometimes that's what we want of God. We say, God, put up the bumpers. Put up the bumpers

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so that I can get through these days. With that said, sometimes falling into the gutter, so to

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speak, are part of what has made us the individuals that we are. It's not to say that every choice has

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uniformly been enjoyable, but God has used the choices, good and bad, to help to make us the

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individuals that we are. All things come together for good for those who love him. All right, the

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fifth point, final point, here's this. Whatever you're going through, whatever you might go through

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next week, next month, next year, whatever it is, no matter how horrible it is, Jesus himself can

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relate to it. God is not aloof in this sense, that he created the world, and he created you, and he

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spins you like a top, and he stands back to see how you'll do, and then he kind of judges you on the

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base of the outcome. Jesus, when he came to this earth, he was despised, he was rejected, he was

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beaten, he was mocked, he was spit upon, he was ultimately crucified. He was a man of sorrows. He

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was acquainted with grief. When Jesus came alongside and wept alongside those who were weeping, it was

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because he knew what it felt like to be hurt. The one who made you, the one who saved you, the one

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who even now gives breath to your lungs, knows exactly what you're going through. He doesn't

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just study you in order to kind of see how you do, but he can relate to you. That's what we've said

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in the past is the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy says, I'm sorry for you.

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Something terrible happened to you. I sympathize. Empathy says, I can relate. Whatever you might go

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through, the heart of Christ can relate to it. And that's encouraging to know. It's encouraging

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to know because it means that when I pray to him, he knows. He knows. He knows. He knows. You ever

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have a child who some terrible things happen. Maybe they've fallen and skinned their knee. Maybe

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someone was cruel to them in class. Maybe there's some heartache in their heart. You pick that child

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up. One of the most immediate things to just say, you say, I know. I know. Why? Because you can relate

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to whatever your child has faced. You've faced hardship and heartache and bullying and skin

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knees and all that stuff. You know what it's like. And it's tender to tell your child. It's tender

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for the child to receive that idea that you can relate to that pain. Christ can relate to what

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we're going through, whether it's Job, David, Paul, Moses, Jeremiah, or you and I. One last

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thought this morning. It kind of helped me understand a little bit the trajectory of my

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own life and ministry at times. I was driving through Wool Market, and this is not terribly

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long ago, driving through Wool Market. I like to go by Tarantos. Even if I'm not going to eat there,

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I just enjoy the idea that I could eat there. So I'm driving past Tarantos, and I go past,

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I'm going through Wool Market. It's just me driving, and I look, and I see something in

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the road ahead. It's right sitting there on two yellow dividing lines. It looks square in the

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middle. And I see it up ahead. And at first, I don't know quite what it is. And then, of course,

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I know what it is. It's kind of oval-shaped. It's dark in color. It's sitting there. It moves

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slightly. What is it? It's a turtle. You've been any time down here in South Mississippi, you know

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exactly what it is. It's a turtle. So in our family, I don't know how you handle these scenarios.

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But in our house, what we do is we get out of the car, presuming it's safe, presuming I could get

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run over by a semi-truck. I'll pull off to the side of the road, and I'll walk over, and I'll

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pick up the turtle and move it. So that's exactly what I did. You know, it was hot and humid, but I

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didn't want this poor turtle to get slaughtered there in the middle of the road. And it was dead

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in the middle. I mean, there was, wherever it went left or right, there was a good chance that

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someone was going to take it out. So I got out of the car, I picked this turtle up and I'm thinking

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to myself, oh, what a good guy. Look at me, he taking care of this poor little turtle. I pick

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up this turtle. I kind of look at it and smile. Do you know what this turtle did? It gave me the

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hissing of a lifetime. I mean, I've been hissed at by turtles, but nothing like this. It took one

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look at me and it's all I could do not to throw the turtle so I go and I take this turtle and

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still hissing the whole time and I go put it off in the grass I back off this thing made more noise

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than any 10 turtles I've ever picked up now as I'm driving away a man and I'm thinking that turtle

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was he sure didn't like me and then it dawned on me how many times has God moved me from plan a to

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plan b he moved me out of the middle of a highway I didn't even know I was positioned in order to

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put me someplace safe. And my response was to hiss like a mad person. For a lot of us, we can relate.

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To be moved from one state of affairs to another and to not like it and to think it's the end of

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the world. But remember, God is good. God's in charge. All things come together for good for

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those who love them. And even if you don't understand it in the moment, what he does,

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he does to bring good outcomes. It'll be a blessing to you and to those other lives that you touch.

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Let's pray.