The following devotion is excerpted from our Faith Forward Family Devotional. We’d love for you to gather your family together to read this devotion below together, reminding them that when we go through hard times, God is always in control.~ Patrick and Ruth
********************
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. Job 1:21
Sometimes life can really hurt, can’t it? We can go through hard or sad times. When life gets tough, we can wonder what God is doing. Or we might ask ourselves, Why me? Job’s life is a good example of how to trust God in the middle of trials.
Job was a blessed man. He had a big family. He was very wealthy. His health was good. Job loved God. He was righteous. Blameless. Everything seemed to be going right for Job. But what would Job do when everything started to go wrong?
God allowed Satan to test Job’s faith—to see if Job loved Him even when things were not going well. Things started to go really wrong for Job! He lost some of his family whom he loved so much. His house burned down. A large fire burned up a lot of his possessions. Even his health began to fail. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. So wrong that even Job’s wife told him he should give up on God. “Curse God and die!” she shouted. His friends were not much help either.
They wondered if maybe God was punishing Job for something he did wrong. Job would not give up on God though. Of course, he was sad and cried out to God. But in the middle of it all, he kept trusting the Lord. And guess what? God blessed Job again. He gave him back everything he lost and even more! The Lord reminded Job, just as He reminds us, that He is good. He is powerful. We might not always understand what He is doing, but God’s plans are perfect. We can trust Him even in the trials.
Here is the key idea to take away as a family: God is in control.
When we go through hard times, we need to remember that God is doing something. He has a plan and a purpose. We might not understand it, but we can trust it because we know God’s heart is good.
Here are a few questions to think about and discuss as a family:
- Why do people get mad at God?
- What helped Job trust God in his trials?
- What do we need to remember when we face hard times?
Father, we love You because of who You are and what You have done for us. Give us faith. Help us trust You and love You even when life is hard. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Excerpted from Faith Forward Family Devotional, Copyright © 2019 by Patrick Schwenk and Ruth Schwenk.
