I Washed My Steps with Butter

There is a verse in the book of Job where he is summing up his previous life of peace and prosperity. And in Job 29.6, he uses the following vivid imagery. When I washed my steps with butter, that verse leaps off the pages of my Bible and resonates deeply within my heart, for it ignites a string of memories for me.

Years ago, I was a Sunday school teacher at a big Baptist church, and one of the other teachers asked me if I would help co-teach his class one summer. And when I agreed, he gave me my assignment. He said he was going to take his class through the book of Job, but he needed to turn it over to me.

He felt he couldn't tackle it, and he wanted me to do it. Well, it was a hot potato I didn't want either. At the time, I felt it was an unfair request, and I even resented him for asking me to do it.

Back then, I didn't properly understand Job, even though I had an earned doctorate in biblical studies. The book of Job was a fearful thing to me, like being out on the deck of a ship in the middle of the ocean on a pitch-dark night, encompassed with depths too deep of things unknown. I didn't have the confidence to teach it properly.

I felt it was like biting a pumpkin. Your teeth won't take hold of it. You see, friends, at that point in my life, it was all sunshine and honey blossoms for me.

I was like old King Midas. Everything I touched turned to gold. I had a thriving, successful business that produced wealth.

I enjoyed good health. I had a good reputation. I had a beautiful wife and a lovely little daughter.

We lived in a mini-mansion with expensive luxury cars, and I owned a second home in Florida. I literally had it all. In the book of Job, I seldom read back then, because it scared me to death.

I didn't want to go anywhere near it personally. That seems like such a long, long time ago in that time in my life. If I was asked to teach Job now, I would embrace the opportunity.

I know I'd be up to the task. For the time came, when I lost my wife to sudden tragedy, I lost my business. I lost my friends.

I lost my wealth. I lost my homes, and I eventually lost my health with a massive heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery. I have walked intimately along the lonely pathway of Job's offerings, and I'm deeply familiar with what he passed through.

You cannot accurately comment on a thing unless you've been there, walked those same footprints, and experienced it yourself. Like I said, I'd be more up to the task of teaching the book of Job today, and this would be my outline, friends. Job was a man who had it all, lost it all, and regained more than all.

He was a man placed under the providential sovereignty of God Almighty, destined to endure seasons of taking, testing, teaching, and turning, all for the glory of God. And if I learned anything from that experience, it's this. God builds his servants through his divine process of reducing and decreasing.

Gold must be reduced to its purity in the furnace of affliction. A branch must be pruned and trimmed back and decreased with a sharp instrument before it can grow more fruit. And one thing I've learned for sure, friends, is this.

If we desire more usefulness to God, then we must submit both to the divine pruning knife and the refiner's fire. True usefulness to God is to be willing to submit to his sovereignty and be reduced to nothing, so he can be everything through us, that when others look at us, what they mainly see is Jesus.