Have You Considered My Servant Leslie

​Have You Considered My Servant Leslie

“And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth…?”
Job 1:8 (KJV)

For most of my life, I read the book of Job with sympathy. I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine losing everything he loved and then being expected to trust God anyway. I thought the story was about suffering.

I now am confident it’s about trust.

It’s not about Job trusting God. 

It’s about God trusting Job.

That realization changed everything for me.

As I’ve walked through this season of my life, I’ve asked God questions that I never thought I would ask. I have cried. I have wrestled. I have wondered why my life had to change so dramatically and why my testimony had to include blindness. I wasn’t questioning whether God was good. I was trying to understand what a good God was accomplishing in and through me.

One morning while reading Job, I felt the Lord impress something on my heart that I have not been able to shake.

“Have you considered My servant Leslie?”

It wasn’t an audible voice, but it was so clear that it stopped me in the middle of reading. I sat there wondering if I had misunderstood what God was showing me. Then I went back to the beginning of Job and read it again.

God wasn’t apologizing for Job.

He was setting him up. He was boasting about him.

The conversation didn’t begin with Satan pointing Job out. It began with God saying, “Have you considered My servant?”

God pointed Job out!

That changes the way I read the entire story.

What if Job’s trial wasn’t evidence that God was setting him up to abandon him? What if it was evidence that God knew exactly who Job was and exactly what he was capable of carrying?

Church folks love talking about favor, but we don’t talk nearly enough about trust.

Favor opens doors.

Trust gives assignments.

Favor gets attention.

Trust carries responsibility.

Everybody wants the oil, but nobody talks about the crushing that produces it. Everybody wants the anointing, but very few people volunteer for the preparation. We celebrate platforms, but we often overlook the private seasons where God is strengthening someone’s character long before He ever increases their influence.

I’ve started wondering if that’s what God has been doing with me all along.

Instead of feeling like God is punishing me, I’m convinced He was preparing me.

I realize that this season has been changing things in me that success never could. It has taught me dependence instead of independence. It has taught me patience instead of control. It has sharpened my discernment, softened my heart, and reminded me every single day that I cannot do anything apart from God.

Before all of this happened, I believed God.

Now I lean on Him.

There is a difference.

When you can no longer rely on what you see, you learn to rely on the One who sees everything.

I know people look at me and see blindness. They see a white stick. They see accommodations. They see everything I can no longer do.

Meanwhile, God sees preparation.

Every difficult doctor’s appointment has been preparation.

Every uncomfortable moment of asking someone for help has been preparation.

Every disappointment has been preparation.

Every closed door has been preparation.

Every tear has watered something that I cannot see yet.

Looking back, I don’t think the enemy understood what he was doing. He thought he was limiting my future, but God was enlarging my capacity. He thought he was interrupting my purpose, but God was refining it. He thought he was taking something away, but God was placing something inside of me that could never be taken.

Strength.

I’m not talking about the kind of strength that says, “Look what I can do.”

This is kind of stretching that quietly says, “Look what God can do through someone who keeps saying yes.”

Maybe that’s why I can still smile.

Maybe that’s why I can still say, “Today is the best day of my life.”

I make it look to others like every day feels easy.

The reality is every day reminds me that God still trusts me with today’s assignment.

I don’t know everything that is waiting for me on the other side of this season, but I have learned enough about God’s character to believe that He never wastes pain and He never prepares people for an assignment that doesn’t exist.

If He is strengthening me, there must be something ahead that requires this kind of strength.

If He is enlarging my faith, there must be something ahead that requires this kind of faith.

If He is teaching me to depend on Him this deeply, there must be people I have not met yet who will one day need this testimony.

So I’ve stopped asking God, “Why me?”

Instead, I find myself praying something completely different.

“Lord, if You have considered Your servant Leslie, then don’t let me waste the opportunity to bring You glory. Finish whatever You’re building in me, because I want to be ready for everything You’ve already prepared for me.”

I have a feeling that one day I’ll look back and realize this season was never about what I lost.

It was always about who I was becoming.

If You Find Yourself in a Job Season…

1. Stop asking, “Why me?” and start asking, “What are You building in me?”

God may not answer every “why,” but He is always willing to reveal His purpose. Sometimes our greatest spiritual growth comes when we stop demanding explanations and begin embracing transformation. Every test has the potential to build something that comfort never could.

Scripture: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…” (Romans 8:28, KJV)

2. Guard your heart from bitterness.

Job lost much, but he refused to lose his reverence for God. The enemy would love nothing more than for your trial to make you cynical, angry, or become offended with God. Protect your heart. Pain is inevitable, but bitterness is a choice.

Ask yourself each day, “Is this trial making me look more like Christ or more like my circumstances?”

Scripture: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23, KJV)

3. Don’t confuse God’s silence with His absence.

One of the hardest parts of suffering and loss is when heaven seems quiet. Remember throughout Scripture, God has often done His deepest work in seasons that felt silent. Just because He isn’t speaking the way you expect doesn’t mean He isn’t working.

Sometimes the Teacher is quiet during the test because He has already given the lesson.

Scripture: “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10, KJV)

4. Keep serving while you’re suffering.

Job continued to honor God before he ever saw restoration. Don’t wait until life feels better to worship, serve, encourage someone else, or use your gifts. Faithfulness during hardship is often where God develops the character needed for greater responsibility.

Your assignment didn’t disappear because your circumstances changed.

Scripture: “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” (Galatians 6:9, KJV)

5. Trust that God knows why He chose you.

This may be the hardest one.

If God allowed this season, He also knows what He’s producing through it. He isn’t making you stronger just so you can survive. He’s strengthening you so you will be prepared to carry the assignment He has already prepared for you.

One day you’ll realize that your greatest qualification wasn’t your education, your experience, or your résumé.

It was your obedience.

Scripture: “But the God of all grace… after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” (1 Peter 5:10, KJV)

A Final Word

If you’re in a Job season today, don’t waste your energy trying to escape what God may be using to prepare you.

The same God who knew Job by name knows yours.

The same God who sustained Job will sustain you.

If God considered you worthy of carrying this season, then trust that He has already prepared a future that requires everything He’s building inside of you today.

Keep the faith.

Keep your worship.

Keep your joy.

Keep your integrity.

Keep moving.

Forward anyway.

Today is the best day of my life, and yours too!

Selah