April 23

“There were very different instruments employed in bringing these misfortunes to pass, and yet all of them.....all were God’s ways of accomplishing his blessed purpose of maturing the fruits of meekness, patience, submission, and trust in the heart of Job, and of bringing him into greater nearness and communion with himself at last.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 4/23

I was just going into 5th grade when my parents moved to Greenwood, Mississippi.  I’d only known Greenville as my home so it was a traumatic move for me.  It was only years later that I found out it had been traumatic for my Dad as well.  The reason for the move was he’d lost his business in Greenville and had been forced to work for someone else.  My Mother, years later, told me he’d asked her to read the book of Job to him that summer.  Little did we know that he only had 17 years left of his life.  A few months before he took his life he told me that alcohol was no longer his “friend”.  It could no longer keep the pain away from his life--he could no longer hide in it because it was destroying his body.  I believe this is why he took matters into his own hands.  He obviously did not learn from the reading of Job’s trials.  Job saw all the disasters that had befallen him as coming from the Lord and in acknowledging that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, all that he’d lost was given back to him several times over.  Lord, it is obvious we must do more than just hear your Word, we must heed it as well, if we are to receive the blessing you intend.

“Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.  By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” 1 John 3:18-20