Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

Round One

(?)

Then the LORD asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause.”

Satan replied to the LORD, “Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 2:3–5)

When bad things happen, they often happen to the wrong person. And when that occurs, we're always left with that haunting question, "Why?" Somewhere in all of this, there is room for the story of Job. For, as we have learned, a better man never lived in his day. He was not only a good man, he was a godly man. He was not only a faithful husband, he was a loving and devoted father. He was a good employer. With plenty of land, an abundance of food, and sufficient livestock and camels to fund Job's dreams, it looked as though his entire future would be a downhill slide.

I imagine that in the struggle of that first fitful night, trying to sleep after burying all ten children with his own hands, laying alongside his grieving wife who had also endured the loss, much of what had happened was still a blur. And there was more to come, much more. He couldn't have imagined it any more than those in the Pentagon who were already busily engaged in dealing with the details of the Northeastern Atlantic shoreline and the New York Harbor, where the terrorists had struck. Our military personnel had no idea they were next. A third plane on another evil mission would soon plunge into the very side of the building in Washington where some were already working on the atrocity that had just happened in New York.

I have spoken to some of those officers who were in the building at that time. One admitted to his own embarrassment, "It never dawned on most of us that the Pentagon was next." We may never know for sure if the third plane was seeking to locate the White House and, because of the foliage of mid-September, couldn't do so. The pilot, in his maddening plan to crash the plane, spotted this five-sided building and tore a hole 200 feet wide due to a double explosion—first from the plane itself crashing into the building and then the igniting of the fuel that sent fire down the wide hallway.

As with Job, it just wasn't fair! At least it wasn't fair from our perspective. The man had modeled genuine integrity. He had blest his Father; in fact, he had worshiped Him, and Satan couldn't stand it.

The Adversary lost round one.