Joy in today with the experience and wisdom of days gone by

AM Psalm 45 • PM Psalm 47, 48
Job 29:1-20 • Acts 14:1-18 • John 10:31-42

Ah! For the good old days when we were young, and life was easy! How many of us are like Job lamenting that today is not like our days gone by?  

Like Job we tend to remember more good than bad. Job describes himself close to sainthood in our passage today. Maybe that’s because he is defending himself to his friends. They think that somehow, he must have done something to deserve this terrible trial that God has sent him.

There are two things here that need to be pointed out. First, the good old days were no better than the days we are living right now. Life was not easy then nor is it easy today. Our life experiences from days gone by make us who we are today no matter what our age. To remain in the past and not make a difference today, to not use all the experience and wisdom we have acquired could be our greatest error. God has given us the ability to see our lives as a time to learn and to use our life experience to make today better for all of us. 

Second, God does not send us trials, nor does He ever abandon us. If you remember in Job, it is Satan that sends these trials to Job not God. For if God is love how could He possibly send pain and heart ache to His Beloved? He can’t and He doesn’t. Life happens! Our bodies fail us! Imperfect humans hurt us! Our environment destroys life, limb and home!

But God is always there! He will always love us! God will never abandon us. And someone should tell Job that he doesn’t have to earn God’s love.  

We are filled with this joy, a joy that Job just wouldn’t see. We are told “Be joyful always”! This joy is bottomless because it is not the world’s joy but God’s joy! Jesus said, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11). Jesus’ joy, God’s joy was in us in the good old days and is in us today.

Job did eventually realize the error of his thinking, “…I have uttered what I did not understand…but now my eyes see you.”

Living today is amazing if we make it amazing with the experience and wisdom of those days gone by. Living today to the fullest in God’s joy. We are going to face trials in our lives and when we do let us pray that we will see God and His love and carry the joy that is within us to strengthen and comfort us.

Written by Chris Schaefer

...who is trying to “be joyful always.”