Suggested Readings: Psalm 17, Job 1:1-22, Luke 21:34-22:6
Do you ever feel like Job? Not that anything that extreme has happened to you, but that there are some days when it feels like one thing is just piled on another, and then another, and then another, until you feel you can’t handle one more thing? And they may all be little things, but enough of those little things can upset the delicate balance a lot of us find ourselves walking most days. Did you ever have a day that was opposite to that? Where one amazing thing happened, and then another, and then another, and then another, until you feel you will just burst with joy?
What was the difference between those two days? Think carefully. . . did only bad things happen on the “bad day?” Did only good things happen on the “good day?” Probably, both days had a mix of good and bad, but the first thing that happened colored our view of the whole day. Or there was just one thing, but it was big enough to inform our opinion on the quality of the day. For Job, you could say it was a pretty big thing: losing his flocks and herds and servants and children, all in one unbelievable day. And yet Job’s response was to fall to his knees in worship.
Jesus describes a similar day in Luke 21, but on a global scale. He foretells the end of all things, adding one thing on another, and then another, and then another; but then he tells his followers not to let their “hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life.” (NIV) Are not those our typical human reactions to the bad days—avoidance, vices, and fear? Rather than wallow, Jesus calls us to focus on “the Son of Man.”
David had a similar response. After describing his enemies at length, along with all the things they did to harm him, David expresses his assurance in seeing God face to face. The real difference between the good day and the bad day (week/month/year) is that the bad is temporary. Always. That was the secret that Job knew. And David. And Jesus. Focus, as Jesus said, on the Son: “Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” (Helen Howarth Lemmel)
Pamela Howell