JULY 1, 2026

 Don't set your goals by what other people deem important.” 

― Jaachynma N.E. Agu

JOB 21-22

27“I know full well what you are thinking,

the schemes by which you would wrong me.

28You say, ‘Where now is the house of the great,

the tents where the wicked lived?’

29Have you never questioned those who travel?

Have you paid no regard to their accounts—

30that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity,

that they are delivered from^c the day of wrath?

31Who denounces their conduct to their face?

Who repays them for what they have done?

32They are carried to the grave,

and watch is kept over their tombs.

33The soil in the valley is sweet to them;

everyone follows after them,

and a countless throng goes^d before them.

34“So how can you console me with your nonsense?

Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”

ACTS 10:1-23

9About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

14“Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

15The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

JOURNAL 

One of the reasons I find Job so compelling is that the arguments being made are the very same arguments we still hear today. Job looks around at the world and cannot reconcile what he sees. Wicked people prosper. Honest people suffer. Evil often appears to go unpunished while those who seek God endure hardship after hardship. His frustration is understandable because life refuses to fit into a simple equation.

His friends respond with an argument that sounds just as familiar. They insist there must be a reason. God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked, so if Job is suffering, he must have done something wrong. We still make similar claims today. We often hear that everyone is a sinner and deserves nothing, as though that statement alone explains every joy, every tragedy, every blessing, and every loss. Yet Job's experience refuses to fit neatly inside that formula.

Perhaps that is the point.

The problem is not that God lacks justice. The problem is that I keep trying to measure infinite wisdom with a finite perspective. I see a single chapter while God sees the entire story. I see one lifetime while He works through generations, centuries, and eternity itself. His purposes stretch far beyond anything I can calculate.

The moment I begin comparing my life to someone else's, I have already stepped onto a path that leads to frustration. Why does one family seem blessed while another struggles? Why does one person reject God and flourish while another faithfully follows Him through constant hardship? Those questions can consume a lifetime and still never be fully answered because they are questions asked from the ground while God answers from eternity.

Then I read Peter's vision in Acts. God declares clean what Peter had always believed was unclean. Once again, God refuses to fit inside human systems and expectations. He reminds Peter that He alone defines what is clean, what is holy, and what His purposes will accomplish.

That brings me back to the only thing I can truly account for. I cannot explain every circumstance. I cannot measure another person's heart. I cannot predict how God is weaving together the lives of millions across thousands of years. But I can choose how I will walk with Him today.

Trust cannot rest on a formula. It must rest on a relationship.

God is personal and collective at the same time. He is writing one great story while also walking beside each individual soul. My calling is not to solve every mystery or compare every outcome. My calling is to seek Him today, receive His Spirit today, and become a conduit of His power, His love, and His discipline in every moment He gives me.

That is enough.

Jesus' picture of the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine for the one reminds me that God is not managing statistics. He is pursuing people. He knows every individual life while holding all of history in His hands. The God who governs eternity is also the God who seeks one wandering sheep. If He is capable of both, then I can trust Him with everything I cannot see and simply live this day faithfully before Him.

12“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

 ~ MATTHEW 18:12-14