For a full description of the (Y4) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Gen. 37
They say you can’t outrun fate. Any effort you make to avoid or change it ends up leading you right into its hands. The greater truth is that you can’t thwart God’s plan. The mind-bending reality is that God, being outside of time, knows what we will do long before we even come to be, let alone do it. Thus, He wove His great plan around our nature, to work all things out for the good of those who love Him (see Rom. 8:28).
Mark 7
When Jesus went to the region of Tyre, he hoped to keep things quiet. Mark notes, however, that He couldn’t escape notice. The thought that popped into my head when I read that is whether or not Jesus can escape notice in me. Jesus put a great light in me, in the form of God’s Holy Spirit. And He told us in His Sermon on the Mount that no one lights a lamp only to hide it. Instead, that light should shine bright, flooding out the darkness around it. In other words, no matter where I go or what I do, the Holy Spirit in me should not escape notice. Something to think about, for sure.
Job 3
Reading Job’s lament got me thinking about how all-consuming grief and long-term physical pain can be. They have a way of making us forget everything good. Then we begin to think we would be better off dead or, better yet, if we had never been born in the first place. I think a big part of the reason for this is because, especially with grief, we can’t see an end to it. Thus, what is really barely a blip on the radar of eternity begins to feel like forever.
The Bible tells us that God has not given us a Spirit of fear. Well, I think that He hasn’t given us a Spirit of despair either. Instead, He has given us hope. We have hope because we know there is an end to all grief and pain. And we know the end is good. Better than good, actually. As Paul said, “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). No matter how endless and weighty our situation feels, the truth is that it isn’t.
While that is easy to know and say when things are fine, it is not so easy a truth to hold onto in a position like Job’s. But then, Job didn’t know the end of the story. Because we know our certain hope, though, we can, even in the most difficult of circumstances, say with the Psalmist, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.” (Ps. 42:5).