August 27

Today's Reading

More and more, Job fails to see his suffering in the right way. Like us, his big question is, "Why?" Since he maintains his integrity and can't understand why God has allowed this, he complains that God made up His mind and won't change it. He fails to draw near to God in his anguish. Instead, he complains that God left him. We are to seek God with our whole hearts, in good times and bad; in happiness and in suffering. He is never really far off, if we are in Christ.

1 Corinthians: in chapter 2, Paul reminds them of the man who was mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5. Obviously he had responded well to the discipline Paul had prescribed. Now, Paul prescribed forgiveness and encouragement.

Psalms: it is easy to be critical of the poor, especially when you have never been poor yourself. However, the earth is teeming with poor people who can find no way out of their poverty. I see it when I travel to the Dominican. Some of the poor are Dominicans, but the really poor are usually Haitians. It is heart-wrenching.

Proverbs: those of us to have experienced the pain of a prodigal child hold on to today's promise from Proverbs.

What are you holding to?