Daily Bible Nugget #677, Job 23:10

The Nugget:

Job 23:10  But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

My Comment:

Job serves as an outstanding person of faith. He trusted God through all his troubles. Others accused him of great sin, saying God would not punish an innocent person. Of course, they did not know the “back story.”

When great tragedy or misfortune strikes us we usually wonder why did God allow that to happen?

I first experienced this when I had my first new car for only a month. I had an accident on I-75. I was on my way to the winter outing with my church group from the Highland Park Baptist Church. It was a winter day and it was snowing lightly. Several of us stopped for gas (I did not need gas yet, my VW Beatle got better gas mileage than American cars did in those days!). When we started back on the trip up north I failed to put my seatbelt back on. I was driving in the left lane and had just gone under a freeway bridge when I must have encountered black ice. I went into the median and lost consciousness. When my car stopped (on its roof), others on the way to the winter retreat stopped to help, telling me my car had flipped over three times end for end. There were cars full of nurses and others. Just then, an ambulance going south on the freeway stopped to assist. I was taken to Hurley Hospital in Flint. My right hand was put in a cast with two broken fingers, and I had to be off from school for a month since I was not allowed to teach while wearing a cast.

I wondered at the time why God allowed that to happen. During that month I was busy enough doing research at the Wayne State University library on my Master’s thesis. It was awkward writing notes with my left hand, but I learned quickly how to do that. I was taking a course in linguistics taught by Dr. Donald J. Lloyd. I had showed him the programmed learning reading units I had been writing to help my students (these units became my Language Enrichment Program now available on Amazon if you search for that title with my name, Jerome H. Smith). Dr. Lloyd encouraged me to take the Greyhound bus to East Lansing where he could meet with me and look at what I had written.

Dr. Lloyd introduced me to Dr. John Ball, the president of the Resources Development Corporation which produced programmed instruction training materials for industry. Dr. Ball looked a few moments at my work and said, “You’re hired!” So I had a regular job during summer vacations the next several summers writing for industry. When I needed to have copies made of my completed Master’s thesis Dr. Lloyd assisted with the task with the copy machines they had at RDC.

But today, March 13, 2022, is the 36th anniversary of the day I was shot in the back of my head at point-blank range by an unknown assailant wielding a nine millimeter handgun in the back teachers’ parking lot at Southeastern High School at 7:15 am. My assailant shouted for me to stop as I walked across the back of the school. I wanted to get in sight of the ROTC windows which looked out on the parking lot. The assailant showed me his gun, but I kept walking, and he stepped behind me and fired the gun. My ears rang. I fell flat on the snow and mud of the parking lot in front of the ROTC windows with enough force to break my glasses. My assailant demanded my wallet when I came to. I gave him my money–thirty-three dollars. My assailant was mad and said, “Is that all the money you teachers carry on you?” Just then the electronics teacher walking to school from the bus stop saw what had happened and called out to me. My assailant ran to his awaiting vehicle. The drafting teacher (who had been car-jacked at gunpoint in this very same parking lot not long before, which when my good friend Pastor Emery Moss heard about it in the news, came to Southeastern to my classroom to be sure I was safe, thinking it was me) took down the license number of the assailant’s vehicle and with the electronics teacher, followed it for a ways. The assailant was driving a stolen vehicle, so he was never identified or caught.

I was  taken by ambulance to a medical facility not far from school. The gym department head brought my broken glasses to me in the hospital and warned me my assailant intended to murder me or he would not have shot me in the head. My teacher friend Mrs. Malik, who had heard on the news that a teacher at Southeastern had been shot that morning, just knew it was me though no names were given and came to the hospital. When my wife and her mother arrived, Mrs. Malik was there to meet her and her “grandchildren,” as she lovingly called my two very young sons. I was released from the hospital, wearing what seemed a very large compression bandage.

I soon learned that my science teacher friend, Mr. Hackett, had announced his resignation from teaching. He gave as his reason how I was mocked and jeered as he and the gym department head (who was on duty and had called the ambulance and also called my wife) escorted–almost carried me–to the ambulance. He said if that is the attitude of students toward his good friend and fellow teacher (me), he no longer wanted to teach in Detroit. Mr. Hackett did me a wonderful favor by retrieving my many selection boxes of my teaching materials from my classroom and taking them to his law office where I was later able to get them.

Unknown to me when all this happened was that I was providentially provided the kind of time needed to produce my Bible study reference tool, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. I am currently working with the publisher to prepare to bring my book back into print.

So, when it seems bad things happen in your life, it may be that God has a plan not seen by you at the time but that works out for His glory over time.

Here are the cross references I have given in The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury for Job 23:10,

Job 23:10

he knoweth. Job 10:7, *Gen 18:19, *Deut 2:7, Jos 22:22, +*2Ki 20:3, *Psa 1:6; Psa 31:7; +**Psa 40:17; Psa 103:14; Psa 139:1, 2, 3; Psa 142:3, Jer 12:3, +**Joh 21:17, *2Ti 2:19.

the way that I take. Heb. the way that is with me. Job 22:3, %+**Rth 1:13, +*Psa 37:34; *Psa 142:3, +*Pro 4:18, Isa 26:8.

he hath tried me. Job 1:11, 12; Job 2:5, 6; Job 13:15, Deut 8:2, Jdg 2:22; Jdg 3:1; Jdg 7:4, 2Sa 22:22, Psa 17:3; Psa 66:10, *Pro 17:3, *Isa 48:10, Zec 13:9, Mal 3:2, 3, Heb 11:17, *Jas 1:2, 3, 4; *Jas 1:12, +1Pe 1:7.

I shall. Job 42:5, 6, 7, 8, Mic 7:9, Mat 15:28, 2Co 1:12, Jas 5:11.