Satan’s Strategy for Your Life #2: Your Family

“While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you."—Job 1:18-19

Satan wants your family. The best way he can get to you, if he can’t get to you directly, is through your family. If he can get your family, then he knows that he can cause you to despair, sin, or turn away from God. Many a believer in Christ has been attacked through a family member’s sickness or sin and either sinned themselves, or even worse, left the faith altogether.

Job “was the greatest of all the people of the east” (Job 1:3) and one that God identified as godly in His sight (Job 1:8). Job was a successful businessman and serious family man. He was married and had seven grown sons and three daughters (Job 1:2; 2:9). He loved his family in such a way that most father’s can only imagine. The Scripture says that,

“His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually”—Job 1:4-5.

Job offered sacrifices for his grown children just in case they had sinned! He was a devoted husband and father and a man that God valued. The idea that God could value a mere mortal only infuriated Satan. He demanded that God lift His hand of protection and allow him to attack Job, which God did, only making sure that Satan could not take Job’s life.

After destroying all of Job's earthly possessions and ruining his career, Satan did what only Satan would do—kill his family. To lose one child would be a blow to any parent, but to lose all of your children in one day would be horrific and disastrous. It’s no small wonder that Job responded in the way that he did,  

“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped”—Job 1:20.

What did Job do after he lost all of his children? He tore his robe and shaved his head—both acts revealing horrible grief. And then Job did the unthinkable—he worshiped! He fell on his face and worshiped! It wasn’t that he didn’t grieve or feel pain. It wasn’t that he was being trite or coping with his situation by ignoring it. No, he worshiped because he realized that God is the author of all of life. He is our reason for being, our heart’s delight, and the one that contains all of the mysteries of the universe. Which is why he could say,  

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD”—Job 1:21. 

Job’s faith was astounding. In the face of the greatest tragedy that could be imagined by a parent, he worshiped!

Satan desires to destroy our lives and will do anything he can to tear us away from Christ. When we encounter Satan’s devastating attacks, we are to do as Paul wrote,  

“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one”—Ephesians 6:11. 

 Our faith in Christ triumphs over all of Satan’s attacks! God sees our sorrow, and has “put our tears in a bottle”—Psalm 56:8. He is not a God who is afar off or aloof to our situation. He hurts with us, loves us, and is infinitely more powerful than anything that Satan can throw at us. We know that God will be victorious and He will bring us to Himself. Even after enduring the loss of his possessions, career, and family, Job worshiped and “did not sin or charge God with wrong”—Job 1:22. Why? Because he knew that God was the Author and Lord of Life. He trusted in the Lord in the midst of devastating calamity and demonstrated to us and to the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12) that God is God and worthy of our love and trust. Amen.