DEALING WITH DIFFICULT TIMES

“Have you considered My servant Job?” (Job 1:1b NASB)

When you are dealing with difficult times, don’t feel by yourself.  We all go through difficult times at some point in life.  Like Job’s experience, which I am sure you are familiar with, there will be times where it seems like you are facing many difficult times simultaneously or in a speedy sequence of events.  People close to you will give you ill-advice.  Your friends will criticize you.  Your enemy, the devil himself, will try to bring you down.  You find yourself looking for directions on how to deal with such times.  To whom should we turn?  Here is your answer!  When the difficult times come, hear the voice of God asking you, “Have you considered My servant Job?”  Then respond by pulling out some of Job’s sayings, such as the ones below, sayings that you can store in your mind and make them your own when the day or days described as “difficulty times” show up in your life.  Here are three suggestions:

Hold fast to your integrity and like Job, say, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”

Endure through your difficulties, waiting on the Lord and like Job, say, “All the days of my struggles I will wait until my change comes.”

Express your dependence on God, realizing He is powerful enough, wise enough, and patient enough to see you through your difficult time, and like Job say, “I know that thou canst do all things.”

To supplement your sayings, do some reading from a passage written by the Apostle Paul.  To save some time, I have used it as our closing passage for this Wednesday morning!  If you are not facing difficult times, go ahead and read it anyway and you will find your spirit lifted!  Have a wonderful day as you move toward all the blessings that the Lord will bestow upon you.  Be blessed!

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (I Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)

Still committed to the climb,

Mark L. King