Are You Being Considered?

What does it truly mean to fear God when life falls apart around us? The ancient book of Job pulls us into one of the most raw and searching questions of human existence. We explore the life of a man described three times as blameless, upright, gentle, and God-fearing, and we watch as everything he treasured was stripped away in wave after wave of devastating loss. Yet the most surprising discovery in this sermon is not the suffering itself, but the Hebrew meaning behind the phrase 'have you considered my servant Job?' That word 'considered' carries the weight of burden, the same word used when Abraham placed wood on Isaac's shoulders before the altar, and when Hagar was sent into the desert carrying provisions and uncertainty. God did not expose Job to Satan out of indifference. He allowed a burden to be placed on someone whose character could bear it and whose response would reveal something profound about what genuine faith looks like. Job's three acts of worship, singing through grief, asking a question that becomes praise, and submitting in awe to a God whose ways are beyond understanding, give us a roadmap for our own moments of being 'considered.' The fear of the Lord, we discover, is not terror. It is fearing God more than our greatest fear.