-August 12, 2022-
Good morning, happy Friday,
“Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me.”
Job had gotten very discouraged over the severity of his trials and longed for days gone by when he had no pain, suffering, and tribulation. Perhaps we have felt as Job did, especially when our trials linger and are multiplied, we just don’t seem to get better. Days turn to weeks, weeks to months, and even months to years. We wish we could turn back the hands of time to brighter and better times.
In Job’s defense of his character to his three friends he expressed it as, “When His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were around me; when my steps were bathed with cream, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me” (Job 29:3-6).
We can all look back to the “good ole days.” As we grow older we have more aches and pains. We can’t do what we used to do physically and must rely more on others for their help. Even so, we can thank God for our many blessings, especially as we learn to depend on Him completely and not on ourselves. There are so many things we can’t control. It is at these times we know more fully that He is in control. The spiritual is more important that the physical, the heavenly than the earthly, and the eternal than the temporal.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being reviewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and external weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are unseen are eternal.”
The past may have seemed better but was it really? Our lives in Christ now can be even better with the Lord. It is not good to look back or long to go back to the past. We must go forward, trusting in the Lord one day at a time. The Israelites in the wilderness wanted to go back to Egypt. They actually thought they had it better as slaves in bondage than to be free on their way to the Promised Land. They spoke of the bread they had to eat to the full, the onions, the leeks, the melons, and the garlic they enjoyed. They had forgotten their oppression and sorrow in Egypt. This can happen to us as believers also. It is called selective memory.
Let us then look up to the Lord not down to our circumstances; let us move forward and not look backwards on the past. Great days are upon us in Jesus. God has done great things for us, we are glad. We need to achieve new milestones, make new memories, and experience new makeovers. God has plans for us to give us a future and a hope. For the child of God, young or old, the best is yet to come. Our best days are ahead as long as we walk close with Jesus.
The unknown hymn writer said it well, “I am weak but Thou are strong, Jesus keep me from all wrong; I’ll be satisfied as long as I walk, let me walk close to Thee. Through this world of toils and snares, if I falter, Lord who cares? Who with me my burden shares? None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee. When my feeble life is o’er, time for me will be no more; guide me gently, safely o’er to Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore. The refrain says, “Just a closer walk with Thee, grant it Jesus is my plea, daily walking close to Thee, let it be, dear Lord, let it be.”
Have a blessed day thanking and trusting God in the midst of our burdens and troubles, knowing everything is from Him and is for our good. Stay safe and healthy .
In His presence and joy,
Dean
Dean Allen's Daily Devotional 