UPDATE 05/28: Welcome visitors from Caffeinated Thoughts!
Aside from the many things God has done for me and my family, one thing He has definitely taken care of in the past 10 years are my jobs. Indeed, the last four jobs I’ve gotten were definitely not something I had much to do with. I basically just showed up to the interview and sent my résumés. God did all the work. It’s so obvious to me when I think back.
So why do I struggle with it this time, this uncertainty with my job? Has He not shown me? Where is my faith and trust?
“You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” –Deuteronomy 8:2.
Ah! That’s why we are going through such trials right now!
“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” –Deuteronomy 8:3.
Wait a second. God let me be hungry? God is allowing me to experience lack? I thought Christianity was about prosperity and abundance and blessing?
“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” –Deuteronomy 8:11-14.
God knows me. God knows my heart. He knows all our hearts. I know God is allowing these struggles right now to do just what He did to the Israelites. He wants to test me and my family to see what is in our hearts and if we would still trust Him. It is during times such as these that it’s so easy to focus on ourselves and our needs. More and more I want to focus on God’s blessings in our lives and to pray for others as Job did.
The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold. –Job 42:10.
God has a plan. God is on the throne. May He humble me to get my eyes off myself and my problems and back on Him and what He wants for my life.
May He Increase!
Amen Joe…..wish I could tell you this is easy ..but it ain’t. I’m with Will when he said he would rather go through the valleys with Jesus than be on the mountain tops w/o Him!
It’s definitely not easy, but I do believe that anything worth anything, is worth the struggle.
I keep having to remind myself: “You’re not home yet! This isn’t your home!”
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