Happy Thursday! It’s October 19, 2023. This morning, as I was reading Job 5, this verse jumped out with a huge insight in tow. Some verses motivate me to action, while others deepen my understanding of the Kingdom of God and His ways. Read on …
Today's Reading:
Job 5; Psalms 108; Acts 10,11
Scripture
“Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so, do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For He wounds, but He also binds up. He injures but His hands also heal.” (Job 5:17-18)
Observation
Job is going through a gauntlet of suffering! His sorry “comforters” try their best to make sense of things, but it’s always difficult to understand much of anything when you’re in the middle of the kiln. It can seem unfair, illogical, and even downright cruel.
However, we can only view life through a knot-hole while God sees through the lens of eternity. He who made us, the Almighty, is our true parent. His love is infinite, while ours is temporary. His plan is for eternity, while ours lasts only for a few earthly years.
So, which will I trust? My knot-hole vision or His eternal scope? My tiny human heart or the One whose heart brought redemption and eternal life to all who call on His name?
God sometimes will allow earthly suffering for eternal rewards, but our emotions will often refuse to accept it. We’d readily trade eternal treasure for temporal comfort. However, God will not relent. He knows His purposes for us, and even though we don’t understand, He will not decrease His eternal will to meet ours, which is only temporal.
Application
Phil. 4:7 gives us a clear scope of what is required to gain peace amid storms: “And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Did you catch the truth? Peace is available, but it will be beyond my ability to understand. In other words, if I require understanding first, then His peace will always be elusive. If I demand answers in order to satisfy my faith, I will only attain remedial levels of belief and conviction that will always be fraught with dissatisfying endings.
However, if God is to help us attain the inner character necessary to fulfill His eternally designed purposes, then at times, His ways will be way beyond our understanding.
Prayer
Dear Father, Your ways are higher than mine, and I often do not understand what’s going on. However, I choose to trust You when I can only see through a knot-hole. May Your peace guard my heart because it is frail and my mind … because it is confused. When I can accept that fact, then Your peace can enter and stand guard to watch over my shaking frame until I fully understand and can see clearly.
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