Day 34

Saturday, March 27
Job 42

Many moments throughout the course of the past year left me feeling a bit like Job. Everything was so good in 2019. What did we possibly do to deserve COVID-19? I don’t believe that a loving God intentionally led us to experience the wilderness of a global pandemic and subsequent economic decline, the cruel murder of George Floyd or the persistent wildfires in California.
Job 42 – like the Easter story – reminds us that time in the wilderness immediately precedes redemption. The suffering we experience in the wilderness is an antecedent to the new thing God is preparing for us and within us.

Like Job, we don’t know how long it will be before we can get back to ‘precedented’ times. This time in the wilderness is meaningful; we’re intended to actively – rather than passively – wait. Like Job, we should leverage this season to grow where we’re planted, praise God and await the restoration promised to us in scripture.

Our stories aren’t over just yet. Job’s tumultuous life ended with the Lord restoring his fortunes and giving him twice as much as he had before. God blessed Job with numerous livestock, many children and a very long life. As in the books of Exodus and Job, great things await us after we finish doing the work required of us in the wilderness.

Reflection by Judith Rowland