Trust for the Future

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   Happy New Year. I'd be willing to guess that many of us have started out this year with some sort of resolution to improve ourselves in one area or another. Maybe we are resolving to stop doing something bad, or we are resolving to begin doing something good. One of the things on my list this year is to  complete a daily Bible reading plan that has me in a different genre each day. I'm hoping that this will keep me from getting bogged down in the Pentateuch. Many a Bible-reading plan dies in Deuteronomy.

   This morning's reading found me in the beginning of Job. If there was a book of the Bible that challenged our notions about the sovereignty of God in the hardships of life, it would be Job. In chapters 1-2, Job is living "his best life now" when the Lord points out his faithfulness to Satan. Satan's response is that Job is only faithful to the Lord because God protects and blesses him. In other words, Job trusts the Lord because of what the Lord gives not because of who the Lord is. So the Lord allows Satan to take away everything but Job's life (and his wife). Job 2:9-10 says, "Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!' But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips." 

   As we look out to whatever may be instore in the new year, there is much we do not know. Will this year be filled with abundance or adversity? Will we experience more celebration or sorrow? Will we fulfill our New Year's resolutions or will we fail? The reality is that we simply do not know what tomorrow holds, let alone the rest of the year. We may start off with the best of intentions, but the greatest test will come when hardships hit. In the coming year, let us resolve to ask with Job, "Shall we indeed accept good from god and not accept adversity?" In this coming year, let us encourage one another to trust God's sovereignty over all, regardless of what the year has instore.