After Job’s expression of worship in Chapter 2, his next speech is a poetic curse on the day of his birth: “Why did I not die at birth?Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?. . .Why is light given to him who is in misery,And life to the bitter in soul […]
“In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.” Job 1:22 When we’re walking through a valley of suffering, it’s easy to look at God with bitterness and maybe even anger. We’re tempted to let our pained cries of “Why, God?” turn into angry fist-shaking or sullen back-turning. Satan (2:5) and Job’s […]
In his book Changed Into His Image, Jim Berg writes, When we take a tea bag, place it in a teacup, and fill the cup with hot water, the water activates the tea in the bag, unleashing its taste into the water around it. The hot water didn’t create the taste; it merely revealed, or […]
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around […]
Why do we suffer? This is a question that every one of us asks at some point in our lives, whether in the face of our own suffering or the suffering of someone we love. Job asked it after he suddenly and (seemingly) unfairly lost his possessions, his children, and his health (Job 23:1-7). Why […]
In Part 1, I shared what God has been teaching me about embracing my health limitations and living my life to the fullest. Part 2 continued the theme with a challenge to, like God, value the journey just as much as–if not more than–the destination. Both parts mentioned letting go of the map we’ve designed […]
Last week I shared with you what God has been teaching me about embracing the limitations of my health struggles. Particularly from the book of Ecclesiastes, He showed me that life is meant to be fully lived wherever you are, whether you’re healthy or not. And I have learned, both from Scripture and from experience, […]
What does it mean when the same theme shows up from unrelated sources in unrelated ways several times in less than a week? It means God’s trying to teach you something. This happened to me just a couple of weeks ago. Let me count for you the ways God brought a theme to my attention: […]
The Valley