Happy Monday! We are reading the Bible chronologically this year, using the plan you can find here. Please feel free to jump in any time and share your favorite verses from the week in the comments!
Here’s the thing. I’m not where I want to be. This past week’s reading always reinforces that for me. We hit the book of Job early when reading chronologically, and it can be a tough book to take. If you’ve never read it all, it’s kind of shocking what he goes through and how his friends handle it. His kids, his wealth, his health… all gone. Even his wife tells him to “curse God and die.” Things must have been pretty awful if they had come to that point.
And yet, tucked into Job 13 is something incredible.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Job 13:15a (NKJV)
Part of me thinks Job might have been sort of hoping that death was close by that point, but the assertion here is bigger than that. Job is essentially saying, “No matter what happens, I’m trusting God.”
Can I truly say that? After all, it’s pretty easy to speak those words, even to believe them when life is going well. But what about when it’s not so easy? When everything falls apart?
There was a period of about eighteen months in my family when it really felt like the hard times would never end. Both of my aunts were diagnosed with cancer. One survived, but her husband died of cancer at Christmas. My grandmother had an unexpected five-way bypass the next April, and buried her youngest daughter in June. In the midst of all of that, my two of my father’s close friends died. We literally reached a point where we didn’t want to hear the phone ring. It was an epically awful time, and I was so, so angry at God. Saying Job’s words during that time, in the midst of pain, would have been incredibly hard.
But do you know what? This is the kind of faith I want to have in God. I want to be able to say that I will trust Him no matter what. I want that kind of relationship with Him, that kind of love for Him, that transcends everything else. Even when it’s hard.
Easy to say… but hard sometimes to do, right?
How about you? Has there ever been a time in your life when you had to hold on to God by sheer willpower? Or let Him hold on to you because there was no way you could hold on to Him? If you’re reading along, what verse spoke to you this past week?
-JB
This week’s plan:
Monday–Job 32-34
Tuesday–Job 35-37
Wednesday–Job 38-39
Thursday–Job 40-42
Friday–Genesis 12-15
Saturday–Genesis 16-18
Sunday–Genesis 19-21
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