Devotion of the Day

When Everything Goes Wrong

Thou art careful and troubled about many things.
Luke 10:41

I do not know what had gone wrong in the kitchen, but it was “one of those days.” Not a drab, uneventful day – plenty happens on these distracting days, when we seem to have got out on the wrong side of the bed. All day long we are vexed and pestered by the mosquitoes of petty care. Everything seems to have determined to be perverse. Tempers flare, nerves are strained, we “Feel like we could scream.”

Some people can stand big troubles better than this variety. They rise to the crash and disaster, but the wear and tear of petty distractions overcome them. And yet perhaps it is a greater victory to overcome these little aggravations than to face nobly a gigantic trial.

There is grace for these days too. We may be kept in perfect peace if our minds are stayed on Him. These dwarfish demons can do our testimony more harm than the onslaught of an oversized devil. The breakfast table may call for more grace than the Lord’s table on Sunday morning. Instead of depending on two cups of coffee making you fit to live with, get a good start at the feet of the Lord of “all the days.”

Devotion of the Day

When the Crash Comes

And there was a day…
Job 1: 13

And what a day that was! Job’s possessions and children swept away within a few hours! It was such a day as Jacob had when his sons reported Joseph slain. Such a day as came to David with the death of his beloved Absalom.

There will come such days. Very few escape them. Castles tumble. The savings of a lifetime vanish. The doctor says there is no hope.

When the crash comes Jacob may lament, “All these things are against me.” But, later, Joseph may say, “Ye thought evil…but God meant it unto good.”

The grace of God is sufficient for the disastrous day as well as for the drab day when nothing happens. Our Lord asked that His disciples be kept by the Father (John 17:11), and they were. Yet they were not spared adversity and for most of them there was violent death. He dept them and none was lost save the son of perdition. His keeping may include days when all seems to collapse. The body, even the mind, may fail. But He takes care of the real “us,” though the outward man perish.

It was an awful day for Job. But it led to his greatest day, when he saw God.