After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his prosperity and doubled his previous possessions.  All his brothers, sisters, and former acquaintances came to his house and dined with him in his house.  They sympathized with him and comforted him concerning all the adversity the Lord had brought on him.  Each one gave him a qesitah and a gold earring.  So the Lord blessed the last part of Job’s life more than the first.  He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.  He also had seven sons and three daughters.  He named his first daughter Jemimah, his second Keziah, and his third Keren-happuch.  No women as beautiful as Job’s daughters could be found in all the land, and their father granted them an inheritance with their brothers.  Job lived 140 years after this and saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.  Then Job died, old and full of days.

Job 42:10-17 HCSB

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“You have the patience of Job!” she says to me.  {I don’t really.}  I think of all the things and people that Job lost and I wonder if he ever had a full-blown temper tantrum…I know I have.  And, like Job, God has never left me.  As I watched my baby girl leave today for college, I felt loss, sadness, and despair.  But I know that she is as close as a phone call and only a day trip away in the car.  As parents, it is hard to watch our children leave after so many years of living with us.  I have had people say to me, “At least you have two more at home.”  And, while this is true, the ones that have moved out can never be replaced.  But our lives and homes are restored to a new normal.

Job 42:10 says that after Job had prayed for his friends, that God made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before!  God is a God of restoration!  He doesn’t just replace what we have lost…He wants to restore us.  When we, His children, suffer loss He doesn’t just quickly replace it with something else…that is not His way.  He wants to heal our hearts and minister to us.  He goes straight to our heart and heals it.  Obviously, He did this for Job.  Job’s friends had really done some awful things to him and, if  God had not intervened, Job would have hung on every negative word and action and maybe even blamed them instead of the real enemy.

You know, God could have replaced all his friends with new ones but that wouldn’t have accomplished the healing that God wanted for his child.  And I am pretty sure that the resentment towards the old ones would have still been there, too.  Instead prayer began to heal Job’s heart and he began to pray earnestly for those that had really hurt him.  This is the moment it all changed…Job began to love his enemies.  This is restoration!  And God gave Job a blessing.

I can safely say that most of us have experienced loss.  Some more painful than others, but pain is still pain.  And God is still the God of restoration.  He wants to begin a new thing in our lives. He wants to replace bitterness and heal our hearts so that we, too, can pray for those who have wronged us or taken something from us.  Let’s begin today!  Just wait and see what your Father is going to do…

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Let us pray: Dear God, You are a loving Father and You care so much for each one of us.  You cry over each loss we endure.  Lord, I ask that You take away any bitterness and anger that we are holding onto and replace it with joy that only You can give.  Thank You for loving us so much that You want to not only give us more than we lost, but You want to heal and restore us to a new person though this.  Help us to forgive those who have wronged us and teach us to pray for them.  Thank You for Jesus, Who took all our sins with Him on the Cross and left them there to die.  We love You and we praise You. In Jesus’ name, amen.