Wednesday, August 21st: Job 1:1-3:26, 1 Corinthians 14:1-17, Psalm 37:12-29, Proverbs 21:25-26 ~ Tammy

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Job 1:1-3:26, 1 Corinthians 14:1-17, Psalm 37:12-29, Proverbs 21:25-26 

Job 1:20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. 21 He said,
“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!”
22 In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.

Job 2:9 His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”
10 But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.
No matter how many times we tell ourselves that following God doesn't mean things will always go our way, somehow we still do think that to a certain degree. 

Like when you hear of a young missionary pilot with a wife, three kids and one on the way who is killed in a plane crash only 3 weeks after beginning their missionary journey.

Or when you hear of a young senior pastor with a wife, four children, and a thriving ministry among the low German community in Mexico who is killed in a plane crash.

Or when a missionary family your church supports comes home and their children suffer from anxiety and PTSD because of what they experienced while on the mission field.

Or when a missionary has to return home because they've been diagnosed with an illness too severe to be treated on the mission field.

Or...
Or...
Or...
The list can go on. 

Often when you hear of these tragedies, your inclination is to question God and wonder why He would allow this to happen to people that are serving Him so faithfully.  Surely they should be exempt from sorrows and trials such as these.

And truthfully, we don't know why.  And, like Job, we may never know why - at least not here on earth. 

But we can trust, as Job did, that God is still God, and worthy of praise, in the good and the bad. Indeed, sometimes, that's all we can cling to.


Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage: Job 4:1-7:21, 1 Corinthians 14:18-40, Psalm 37:30-40, Proverbs 21:27