Blessed are the who?

Matthew 5:4

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. (ESV)

I’ve been reading the book of Job lately, and I still cannot fathom the extent of what Job suffered.  This was a man who had loving children, and servants, and land, and animals, and riches, and respect…and lost it all.  He had been faithful to God!  He had been doing all of the right things, but God allowed Satan to prance in and take all of that away to try to get him to turn from God.  God allowed it because He knew that Job was faithful to Him no matter what.  However, Satan chose to leave Job’s wife and friends who were bad influences; and as if Job wasn’t suffering enough, his closest friends and his wife were telling him bad advice and lies about God!  For days, Job sat wondering what was going on, trying to discover the truth from God, all the while having his head and ears filled with the negative comments from his friends and wife.

Do you ever feel like Job?  Do you feel like you’re doing everything right, but somehow your world still feels like it’s falling apart?  It seems like nothing is going right and you just can’t figure out what to do or why you’re even feeling this pain?  Are you mourning things or people that you’ve lost in your life?  Sometimes, it takes a while to get an answer to the question, “why?”  But be patient, God is faithful.  He is faithful to his promises and he promises that those who mourn will be comforted.  Job experienced that promise as God blessed him later in life for staying faithful, but ultimately we will all experience that blessing if we are members of the kingdom of God because one day “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).  Stay faithful like Job, and one day you’ll understand God’s blessing, but that day may not be in this life.