Dear Ones,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Hope you had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. We are enjoying our walk on the Paul Bunyan trail, and it seems like everyone was out walking yesterday. Today I am going to make a new dessert and go to my exercise class. etc.                                                                                                                   Devotions from Judy’s heart                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   We all go through hard times of suffering and who endured more than Job. He lost everything including his family, livestock, servants, health, reputation, wealth etc. and yet he passed the test and did not renounce his faith in God. Even though everything was taken from him, he still had God! As we know, later in his story, everything was restored but what can we learn for it? How do we face suffering and go through those hard times when things don’t even make sense to us? What is our response?                                                                                                            From scripture we are told we will go through times of trial and testing, and just because we know the Lord doesn’t give us a free pass. But we can glean good from our trials if we look to the Lord in them and we can grow and become stronger in our faith. I have spent quite a bit of time in Job, and I also remember going with Al to a class at Fuller Seminary on Job and I think we can learn much from him. If you are going through a big trial right now you may also be asking God, why is this happening to me? It doesn’t mean you have committed a grievous sin and God is punishing you; in fact, God may be working on your behalf right now. Like Job who answered his wife when she wanted him to renounce God (Job 2:10), “We take the good days from God—why not the bad days?” We get both and what do we learn from them?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     One thing we learn is patience as we may not be able to get out of the situation. We are in it as long as the Lord says. We may have to make a choice at times if we are going to let our heart get hardened or if we are going to endure with His grace. We may find if we don’t learn what He is trying to teach us, there may be another lesson down the line. What we are going through could be preparation for something bigger God has for us, and He is preparing us now. We also get understanding of what others are going through in their hard circumstances and have empathy, not like Job’s friends who made accusations of him. We may gain understanding more of what Jesus also went through for us. The bottom line is that God is enough, no matter what we suffer. We are here on earth such a short time and all of us, like Job said, will go through good days and bad days, but He is with us.

Challenge for today: Share with someone who is going through a hard time what you learned from a situation God took you through.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy