JULY 3, 2023

  “Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invicible host against difficulties.” 

― Helen Keller

“Remember, results aren't the criteria for success — it's the effort made for achievement that is most important.” 
― John Wooden, Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks for a Better Life

JOB 26-28

20Where then does wisdom come from?

Where does understanding dwell?

21It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,

concealed even from the birds in the sky.

22Destruction^b and Death say,

“Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.”

23God understands the way to it

and he alone knows where it dwells,

24for he views the ends of the earth

and sees everything under the heavens.

25When he established the force of the wind

and measured out the waters,

26when he made a decree for the rain

and a path for the thunderstorm,

27then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;

he confirmed it and tested it.

28And he said to the human race,

“The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,

and to shun evil is understanding.”(26:20-28)

ACTS 11

15“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with^a water, but you will be baptized with^b the Holy Spirit.’ 17So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

JOURNAL 

Hellen Keller has always been an enigma to me. To be able to learn and to become a force of wisdom, encouragement and love when she could not see or hear is just beyond my understanding. But then upon closer examination...there is my problem. I too often equate success and the ability to be successful within such a narrow framework, I also often do not include God within that framework. 

Job is again confronted with the reality that all is from God...even the unpleasant, even the suffering. Job does not know the interaction between God and Satan but the reality is that God allows it. God allows death, destruction, pain, suffering and hardship. Yet God is still God and is also the source of all goodness, so even though he allows the darkness he is still good. This is the reality of life and to live it and live it well it is a reality that I must accept. God never promised life would be easy or without adversity, in fact time and time again the Bible states the opposite.

Yet what God does promise is that he will be there with us through it all. He promises that no matter the trial or the success, his love and spirit will remain steady and true. Our challenge is to continue to seek him, to continue to obey him no matter the day, time or hour...no matter the circumstance or situation.

That is the true test...just as love for a child or another is proved when the love remains even though it hurts to love, even when the love is not reciprocated. To be devoted to God, even when things do not go my way but also just as important...even when they do fall in my favor. I think sometimes that is even a greater challenge to seek him with the same passion and need when things are going well as I do when things are not. 

 Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-10