21 Days of Prayer - PersevereSample

When Everything Goes Wrong

If anyone has ever experienced a “bad day,” it’s Job.

Job was a man who was “blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1). Yet, God allowed Satan to tempt him, though he did not allow the devil to lay a finger on Job himself (Job 1:12). What follows is a tragedy of death, damaged property, and illness. Job lost his children and everything he owned. Throughout the Book of Job, we read Job’s honest thoughts and frustrations to God and his friends.

Everything that could have gone wrong in Job’s life went wrong. He suffered loss, grief, pain, loneliness, and abandonment. He was misunderstood and challenged by his friends when he was at his lowest point. He ranted to God and felt as though He was silent. He couldn’t understand why God would allow things like these to happen to him.

If you’ve ever experienced a bad day or maybe a bad week, month, or year, you’re not alone. When everything seems to go wrong, it’s easy to blame God, others, or ourselves. We can sit in our self-pity and depression, refusing to get up and feeling justified in doing so. However, we learn from Job’s story that God is working behind the scenes when we feel like everything goes wrong. Through Job’s conversations and perseverance, he finally came to the revelation in Job 42 that God was doing something “too wonderful” for him to understand. Through this difficult experience, Job saw who God was for himself.

If you feel like everything is going wrong in your life, I want to encourage you that there is one thing that is not crumbling; there is one thing that is not shaken, and that is God the Father. You may not understand why things are happening the way they’re happening right now, but you can rest assured knowing that if you lean on God in this season, you will see Him in ways you’ve never seen Him before.

In the end, God “blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part” (Job 42:12). He restored what Job had lost and gave him more than he had before. May we cling to the hope that when this season ends (because it will end), God will not only restore what has been lost but also give you something even greater than you had before.

Emily N. Green

Prayer Point: What is going wrong right now? Pray about this and ask God to set things right in accordance with His will. Praise Him for working behind the scenes in ways you don’t know yet.