JULY 4, 2025

  “If you have money, power, and status today, it is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which you earned. In short, all your resources are in the end the gift of God.” 

― Timothy J. Keller

JOB 29-30

 26Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;

when I looked for light, then came darkness.

27The churning inside me never stops;

days of suffering confront me.

28I go about blackened, but not by the sun;

I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

29I have become a brother of jackals,

a companion of owls.

30My skin grows black and peels;

my body burns with fever.

31My lyre is tuned to mourning,

and my pipe to the sound of wailing.(30:26-31)

ACTS 12

Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. 20He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply.

21On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” 23Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

24But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.

JOURNAL 

Suffering and fortune don’t seem to choose based on merit. They arrive unannounced, often indifferent to character. Job, a righteous man, cries out in agony, not because he did wrong, but because life, in its mystery, brought pain. He writes, “When I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness… the churning inside me never stops.” (Job 30:26-27). His suffering is deep, raw, and undeserved.

Meanwhile, Herod, drenched in power, adored by crowds, arrayed in robes...fails to give glory to God and is struck down, “eaten by worms and died.” (Acts 12:23). A gruesome reminder that worldly status is fleeting, and unacknowledged grace carries a price.

These two lives, Job and Herod...sit in stark contrast. One broken and blameless. One exalted and corrupt. Yet both lives ultimately underscore the same truth: righteousness is not a shield from suffering, and power is not proof of favor. As Timothy Keller wrote, “If you have money, power, and status today, it is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health—none of which you earned… all your resources are in the end the gift of God.”

This realization humbles me. Too often I fall into the trap of comparison, measuring myself by others’ success, lamenting my setbacks, questioning my worth. But that’s the lie. The real blessing is not comfort, or recognition, or even clarity. It’s life. Breath. The presence of God. His Spirit. His peace.

Today, as we mark our country’s improbable independence, I’m reminded that sometimes the most powerful outcomes begin in hidden, desperate places. On January 14, 1776, Washington wrote, “Few people know the predicament we are in.” And yet, by providence and perseverance...a nation was born. Against all odds. As with Job. As with the resurrection. God does his greatest work in the dark.

Proverbs 24 reminds me:
“For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again.”
It doesn’t promise they won’t fall, but it does promise they’ll rise.
So I hold to that. I rise. Not because I am strong, but because I am His.

15Do not lurk like a thief near the house of the righteous,

do not plunder their dwelling place;

16for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again,

but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.

PROVERBS 24:1