When Prayer Doesn’t Work

It was a stormy night. Sister Faustina bowed her face to the ground and prayed the Litany of the Saints. Toward the end of the Litany, such drowsiness overcame her that she couldn’t finish the prayer. She immediately got up and prayed, “Jesus, calm the storm, for Your child is unable to pray any longer, and I am heavy with sleep.” With these words, she threw the window open, not even securing it with hooks. Sister Fabiola said to her, “Sister, what are you doing!? The wind will surely tear the window loose!” But Sister Faustina asked her to sleep in peace. At once, the storm completely subsided. The next day, the sisters were talking about the sudden calming of the storm, not knowing what had really happened. And Sister Faustina thought to herself: “Only Jesus and Faustina know what it means…” Such was the trust Saint Faustina had in Jesus. No wonder He appeared to her and gave her the mission of Divine Mercy for the whole world, with the instruction to inscribe the words: “JESUS I TRUST IN YOU.” She abandoned herself to Him completely, just like a child. Once, during Holy Mass, she had a miraculous vision. Jesus appeared as a one-year-old child and asked her to take Him in her arms. When she had taken Him in her arms, Infant Jesus cuddled up close to her bosom and said, “It is good for Me to be close to your heart…because I want to teach you spiritual childhood. I want you to be very little because when you are little, I carry you close to My Heart, just as you are holding Me close to your heart right now." Spiritual childhood is often misunderstood as naïveté or excessive sentimentality. However, it involves a total surrender to our heavenly Father's providential care—total abandonment of our own plans, opinions, and self-will—and a radical trust in God. Can we, too, ask God to give us the grace to accept—like a little child—all that He asks of us in this life? As we do, can we trust, like Saint Faustina, that the Lord will not abandon us, even for a moment?

When thoughts of worthlessness creep in, try this… He reeked. His filthy, starving body wasted away like his squandered inheritance. Shame engulfed him. He had lost everything—his wealth, his reputation, his family—his life was broken. Despair consumed him. Then, suddenly, his father’s gentle face flashed across his mind. Reconciliation seemed impossible, but in his desperation, he “set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’...But the father said…‘this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate” (Luke 15:20-24). Accepting God’s forgiveness is hard. Admitting our sins means admitting we need our Father. And as you and I wrestle with guilt and shame from past offenses, Satan the accuser assaults us with his lies: “You are unworthy of love and forgiveness.” But the Lord calls us to reject this lie!  At baptism, your identity as a child of God was stamped on your soul forever. And just like the prodigal son, you are called to discover your true identity and worthiness. God never stops loving you, no matter what you have done. “I will not reject anyone who comes to me” (John 6:37).  You and I are no exceptions! So, how can we take practical steps to accept God’s forgiveness? Seek the Lord, embrace His mercy, and be restored by His powerful grace.  Seek the Lord Find your nearest church or adoration chapel and meet the Lord face to face. Ask God to help you see yourself through His merciful eyes with His unconditional Love.  Next, make an honest and courageous inventory of your soul. Be brave and look at Christ on the Crucifix as you reflect—bring yourself to the Lord. Admitting the reality of our sins is painful, but an authentic, vulnerable heart is ready to receive the fruits of forgiveness.  Remember, you are a child of God—the Lord will not turn you away!  Embrace God’s Mercy Wrestling with guilt and shame can be like trying to hold a beach ball under the surface of water. It takes so much effort! On top of this, the devil often leads us to believe we are unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness. But from the Cross, Christ’s blood and water flowed from His side to cleanse, heal, and save us. You and I are called to radically trust in this Divine Mercy. Try saying: “I am a child of God. Jesus loves me. I am worthy of forgiveness.” Repeat this truth every day. Write it somewhere you see often. Ask the Lord to help you release yourself into His tender embrace of mercy. Let go of the beach ball and surrender it to Jesus—nothing is impossible for God!  Be Restored In the Sacrament of Confession, we are restored by God’s graces of healing and strength. Fight against the devil’s lies and meet Christ in this powerful Sacrament. Tell the priest if you struggle with guilt or shame, and when you say your act of contrition, invite the Holy Spirit to inspire your heart. Choose to believe in God’s infinite mercy as you hear the words of absolution: “May God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” You are now restored in the unconditional love and forgiveness of God! Despite my failures, I ask God every day to help me accept His love and forgiveness. We may have fallen like the prodigal son, but you and I are still God’s sons and daughters, worthy of His endless love and compassion. God loves you, right here, right now—He gave up His life for you because of love. This is the transforming Hope of the Good News! So, embrace God’s forgiveness and dare to courageously accept His Divine Mercy. God’s inexhaustible compassion awaits you! “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1).

Countless times have I felt that nobody knows what I’m going through. As I struggle, I’ve yearned for someone who would look at me and say, “I know exactly how you feel.” Even those who suffer similarly cannot understand exactly what is in my heart. Often, at those times, it seems that human love falls short of what I crave. People don’t live up to my expectations for what I desire in love, and often, I fall short of others’ expectations for love.  Yet during those times, I realized that everything I desire is possible. At Christmas time, we see how God became man so that He could feel everything that we feel in our human weakness. He knows what it means to suffer as we do. This serves to remind us that there is someone who understands our pain, someone who suffers with us.  The fact that God chose to become human for me demonstrates the magnitude of His love. That love and understanding I crave from human beings is demonstrated in the choice God made to sacrifice Himself for me by becoming human. There is no greater love story ever written than our God becoming a tiny dependent baby, all for us!

They say that pearls are formed around an intrusion, an unwanted foreign object that finds its way into its deeply protected shell. Once a foreign object enters the oyster shell, it secretes layers of the same luminous substance that is used to create the innermost part of its own shell. It continues to do so in concentric layers, eventually forming a shiny round pearl. Oysters are not much to look at, and producing a pearl is not an oyster’s ultimate purpose. Yet, in the course of survival, as a device of self-protection, the oyster builds itself around an unexpected intrusion to bring forth beauty. Amid the peace of a smooth-going life, when unwanted intrusions enter my heart and soul and threaten to eat me from within, does the oyster give me a lesson worth trying out? When failures, insurmountable barriers, any and every burden that was not mine in the first place end up within me by chance or by choice, can I secrete around it a thin layer of my innermost being? I have found that if I try hard enough to point myself to The Giver of Eternal Love, my innermost being will be slowly filled with His being. As I gaze at the Eucharist for endless hours with nothing but gratitude, as I receive The Host into my soul with the greatest desire, as I sit down at His feet and listen with trust, that self-giving Love will slowly fill my soul. Henceforth, with every little piece of disturbance that enters and threatens to disturb my peace, this Love within will cover it, one layer at a time. Eventually, precious pearls of saintly luminosity will be pried forth by The Expert Hand and adorn many lives with it.

Trials in life can be exhausting...but life offers us signs to help us fight and survive Over the years in spiritual direction, as I have listened to people share their struggles, one thing often repeated is the sense that God has abandoned them or is distant and aloof when they are going through trials. “What am I doing wrong? Why has God put me through this? Where is He in all of this?” Often people think that once they have had a serious conversion and get close to Jesus, their life is going to be problem-free. But the Lord never promised that. In fact, God’s Word is clear on this. Thorns and Thistles In Sirach 2:1, it says, “My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials” (that whole chapter is a great one to read, by the way). The apostles also tried to prepare new Christians for this truth as they spread the Gospel. We read in Acts 14:22, “They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many trials to enter the Kingdom of God.’” As we grow in our relationship with God and get more serious about obeying His Word, we are going to be faced with some serious challenges and hardships. We are going to have to make decisions and take stands that make us unpopular. People are going to misunderstand us. Not everyone is going to like us. If you want everyone to like you, forget trying to follow Jesus. Why? Because to live the Gospel life as Jesus preached it to us is to go against our culture. Jesus Himself warns us of this “If the world hates you, realize that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). So yes, we must pass through many trials and hardships in this life. But as I remind people in spiritual direction, God never leaves us on our own in those difficult times. He wants to give us encouragement and help along the way so that we persevere and come through the storms of life stronger and more convinced of His deep and abiding love for us. God is trustworthy! Reading the Signs Think about the example of the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament. He went against the crowd and took a strong stand against idolatry when he confronted the false prophets of Baal. After the dramatic and wildly successful confrontation, Queen Jezebel was furious and determined to kill Elijah. Fearing for his life, Elijah fled in haste to the desert. He collapsed under a broom tree, exhausted, depressed, and wanting to die. That’s when God sent an angel to bring him food and water. The angel said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you” (1 Kings, 18 and 19). God knows exactly what we need. He knew that Elijah needed to sleep, eat, and recover after a stressful event. The Lord knows what you need. God wants to meet our needs and encourage us. However, we have to be attentive to how He might be doing that. Many times I think we miss His attempts to communicate with us. The Lord did not speak to Elijah in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. But in the “sound of sheer silence,” is when Elijah encountered God. Lilies Everywhere Some years ago, I was going through a time of difficult trials and desolation. Life felt very heavy and burdensome. One Saturday, a young friend of mine went out horseback riding and found a white lily-like flower in the desert and brought it back and gave it to me. The next day, I was walking down the street in El Paso and saw an artificial white lily lying on the ground. I picked it up and took it home with me. The following day I came across another white lily-type flower growing near a sidewalk. Three white lilies in three days. I knew there was a message in this from the Lord, but I did not know exactly what He was trying to say. As I reflected on it, a memory suddenly came back to me. Many years ago, when I was a new missionary in our community, we were having Mass at our Youth Center. After Communion, I was praying with my eyes closed. Someone tapped me on my shoulder. Startled out of my prayer, I looked up and saw the priest standing there. He said to me, “The Lord wants you to know that you are a lily in His eyes.” And then, the priest went back to the altar and sat back down. I did not really know that priest yet, and he never shared any other message like that with me again. But I stored it in my heart as a special word from the Lord to encourage me. Now, all these years later, that memory came back to me, and now I understood the lilies. The Lord wanted to encourage me during the tough time I was going through. He was reminding me that I am His lily and that He loves me very much. It filled my heart with some much-needed peace and reassurance that I was not going through the storms alone. God was faithfully going to see me through them. Pay Attention God knows you by name. You are His beloved child. He sees you and knows all that you are going through. He wants to communicate His love to you, but usually, the signs come softly and gently. We can miss them if we are not paying attention. I could have missed that message of love with the lilies. I could have thought they were just a coincidence. But I knew it was more than a coincidence, and I wanted to know the message. God revealed it to me as I pondered in my heart what the meaning might be. And when I understood it, it gave me consolation and strength to endure. So I encourage you—persevere through the trials. Don’t quit! And look for those little signs of God’s love and encouragement along the way. I guarantee you they are there. We just need to open our eyes and ears and pay attention.

Get a hands-on experience on how God can use the stuff of earth to communicate the stuff of heaven When I walked out my front door to bring in the garbage cans one day, I stopped short in fear. There was a fresh snakeskin draped over the drain cover next to the house. I immediately called out to my husband, since I have this thing with snakes.  When it became clear that this was only snakeskin and there were no snakes nearby, I relaxed. and asked God what lesson He was trying to teach me that day. What’s the whole point? I’m what teachers call a kinesthetic learner. I learn best by moving or interacting with things. Lately, I’ve noticed that God often reveals Himself to me through material objects. This divine pedagogy is even alluded to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word, provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities.” (CCC, 54) For instance, God sent a smoking fire pot and flaming torch to Abraham, a wrestling angel to Jacob, and a burning bush to Moses. God sent a dove carrying an olive branch and then a rainbow to Noah, some dew to Gideon, and a raven with bread and meat to Elijah. The God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, and the God of Moses is also our God. Why wouldn’t the God of all creation use the visible, tangible matter of earth to communicate invisible and intangible realities of Heaven? Fr. Jacques Philippe has written, “As creatures of flesh and blood, we need the support of material things in order to attain spiritual realities. God knows this, and it is what explains the whole mystery of the Incarnation” (Time for God, p. 58). God can send us messages via a license plate or a bumper sticker. Last week the words on the back of a truck, “keep moving,” resonated with me. They reminded me of the homily insight I heard that very morning — that we are called to keep sharing the Gospel. God might also use nature to teach us. While picking cherries recently, I was reminded of how the harvest is abundant, and the laborers are few. A stormy day might bring to mind that “we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). A beautiful bird or gorgeous sunset might be God’s way of lifting our sagging spirit. Whenever I am particularly surprised by something, I try to ask God what lesson He might be teaching me. The other night, for instance, when I was debating about getting out of bed to check on my daughter, a prayer card honoring St. Monica, the patron saint of mothers, suddenly fell off my dresser. I immediately got up and checked on her. Or the time when I woke up in the wee hours of the night and felt called to pray a rosary on behalf of a recently deceased family member and was delighted to see the most glorious shooting star. Sometimes God sends His message through other people. How many times have you received a card, phone call, or text from someone that was just the encouragement you needed? One summer, while on a bike ride mulling over the possibility of discontinuing my Bible study, I ran into a friend. Out of the blue, she brought up the fact that she planned to keep her Bible study going because once you stop something, it is very hard to get it going again. God might also use concrete objects to discipline us or help us grow in our discipleship. One morning I stumbled across three large nails. They were identical, but I had found them at three different places: a gas station, my driveway, and down the street. By the third nail, I stopped and asked God what He was trying to tell me and realized I was in need of repentance about something in my life. I’ll never forget the time I stepped outside, and instantly a fly flew into my eye. I'll let you use your imagination for that lesson learned. Learning Style God teaches us all the time, and He accommodates all types of learners. What works for one person may not work for another. Some will hear God more clearly at Mass, others at Eucharistic Adoration, when reading the Bible, or in their private prayer time.  However, God is always at work and continually teaching us through our thoughts, feelings, images, Scripture passages, people, imagination, words of knowledge, music, and each event of our day. I personally appreciate it when God communicates through physical objects, as I tend to remember the lesson better that way. You might be wondering what I learned from the snakeskin. It brought the following scripture to mind: “People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17). Holy Spirit, help us to be more aware of any lessons You might be teaching us today.  

Many of us are familiar with the parable in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 18: 9-14) that dramatizes and contrasts the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector. When we compare their prayers, we might identify more with the prayer of the Pharisee who thanks God that he was not a sinner like the tax collector. Thinking ourselves generous, we may have prayed such a prayer without recognizing the self-righteous attitude and the sense of superiority embedded in that prayer. Jesus instead praises the humble prayer of the tax collector whose humility and honesty allows him to go home justified. If we adopt the attitude of the tax collector, we won’t be likely to judge other people unjustly. If we sincerely see ourselves as the sinner we are, how could we pronounce the final judgment on another? Judging others’ final destiny comes from an attitude of superiority, a sense of pride that we might say was the first and greatest sin. Our Lord always leaves the door for mercy open until the final moment. As we go through our day, do we stop to consider how many times we judge others based on exterior perceptions, whereas the Lord sees into their hearts? Do you ever find yourself condemning others when you are watching or reading the news? How often does a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other trait that is different from our own cause us to pass a negative judgment on them? Unfortunately, many of us don’t realize the gravity of judging others while failing to closely examine our own actions and motivations. In the Gospels, Jesus embraces the outcasts and sinners. He shows love and acceptance toward those that the self-righteous Pharisees and the scribes rejected. The compassion Jesus had for sinners should fill our hearts-whenever we are dealing with those who are different from us or whose actions offend us. When we humbly realize that we are indeed sinners, we will throw ourselves on God’s mercy and realize that the blood Jesus shed on Calvary was shed for us, for our enemies, and for those we are inclined to judge. They too have precious souls that Jesus longs to redeem. When we pray for people, let’s first examine the attitude we have toward them. Is our attitude compassionate, or is it purely judgemental? A prayer that comes from a loving heart will be more fruitful than a prayer born of judgment. Let us ask the Lord’s forgiveness for the times we have judged others unjustly and beg Him to bless us with a compassionate heart like His.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) The first time I noticed Anne was in church during Holy Mass. On weekdays, I attend Mass in a small chapel with only two rows of seats. You see the same few people every day, so you become familiar with everyone.  Anne seemed to occasionally have tremors. At first, I assumed she had Parkinson’s disease. However, after closer observation, I noticed she only had this issue when receiving Holy Communion. Her body, especially her hands, would shake as she accepted the host from the priest. The trembling would continue for a few minutes. One day, I decided to ask Anne about her reaction during Communion. Anne graciously explained this unusual gift. Her tremors were not related to any sort of medical condition, although many people assumed that was the case. She was slightly embarrassed by her body’s reaction, because it brought unwanted attention to her. This phenomenon started several years ago when she suddenly recognized the magnitude of what it meant to receive the body of Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, had become a human being for our sake. Full of grace and truth, He lived among us. He died sacrificially for our sins. After this moment of awareness, Anne says her body involuntarily trembles every time she accepts Communion. Anne’s reverence for the Eucharist gave me a new appreciation for this Sacrament. Saint Augustine described a Sacrament as an ‘outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace’. How often do we recognize the signs of grace? When we reduce the sacraments to mere rituals, we miss out on the awareness of God’s loving presence. Sacred realities can only be appreciated by those who are attentive. Lord Jesus, I pray that You would give me a deep reverence for all that is sacred. Let me embody Christ in all that I am and all that I do. Mold me into a living sacrament--an outward and visible sign of your inward and invisible grace. Amen.

Are you in search of something more in your life? Get hold of this key to unlock the mystery. Every Holy Saturday, in preparation for Easter, our family celebrates a Christian version of the Seder Meal. We eat lamb, charoset, bitter herbs and we pray some of the ancient prayers of the Jewish people. ‘Dayenu’ a lively song that recounts God’s kindnesses and mercy during the Exodus, is a key part of the Passover Seder. The word “Dayenu” is a Hebrew term meaning “it would have been enough for us,” or “it would have sufficed.” The song reviews the events of the Exodus and proclaims, “Had God carried us out of Egypt and not carried out judgments against the Egyptians, Dayenu! That would have been enough. Had He carried out judgments against them, and not against their idols…Dayenu, etc. Any one of God’s mercies would have been sufficient. But He gave us all of them! Like many of us, I spent most of my youth in endless search for something that sufficed or satisfied. There was always this unquenchable longing—a feeling that there was ‘something more’ out there, yet I could never quite grasp what, where, or who it was. I chased after the typical American dreams of good grades, exciting opportunities, true love, and a fulfilling career. But all of these left me feeling unfulfilled. When I Found Him I remember when I finally found what I was looking for. I was 22 and I met authentic Christians who were actively seeking to follow Jesus. Their influence helped me more fully embrace my own Christian faith, and I finally found that peace I was craving. Jesus was the One I was looking for. I found Him while serving others, while worshiping Him, walking amidst His people, reading His Word, and doing His Will. I realized for the first time that my faith was so much more than a Sunday obligation. I realized I was constantly in the good company of a God who cared for me and wanted me to care for others. I wanted to learn more about this Loving God. I cracked open my dusty Bible. I went on a mission trip to Cameroon, Africa. I spent a year living in solidarity with the poor at a Catholic Worker House. The ‘Peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding’ surrounded me and would not let me go. I was so enveloped by the Love of Jesus that people would randomly come up to me and ask why I was peaceful, and sometimes actually follow me around. Mary, the Blessed Mother of my Lord, and Savior, guided my every step. The Rosary and daily Mass became indispensable parts of my spiritual diet and I clung to both Mary and Jesus as if my very life depended on it. However, somewhere over the next phase of my life, I lost this sense of Dayenu, the sense of satisfaction and the deep peace that surpasses all understanding. I can’t say exactly how or when. It was gradual. Somehow, while leading an active life raising five children and returning to the workforce, I got caught up in the busyness of life. I thought I needed to fill every waking moment with productivity. It wasn’t a good day unless I accomplished something, or several somethings. Pockets of Silence Now that my five children are mostly raised, I am still tempted to jump full force back into the world and fill every waking hour with tasks. But the Lord keeps tugging at my heart to spend more time with Him and purposefully create pockets of silence in my day so that I can hear His Voice clearly. To actively guard my mind and heart from the noise of the world I’ve developed a routine that helps me stay in touch with God. Each morning, the first thing I do (after attending to essentials like coffee and seeing children off to school) is to pray the daily Mass readings, go on a Rosary walk, and attend daily Mass. Bible. Rosary. Eucharist. That routine is what brings me peace and focuses me on how to spend the rest of my day. Sometimes certain people, issues, and various tasks come to mind while praying, and I make a point (later in the day) to reach out to or pray for that person, pray over that concern, or complete that task. I simply listen to God, and I act on what I believe He is asking of me that day. No day is the same. Some days are much fuller than others. I do not always respond as quickly as I could or love as much as I should. But I offer the Lord all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings at the beginning of each day. I forgive others for their transgressions, and I repent of any failings at the end of each day. My goal is to know deep in my heart that I have been a good and faithful servant and that my Lord is pleased with me. When I feel the Lord’s pleasure, I find deep, lasting peace. And Dayenu…that is enough!  

Daunted by the struggles in your life? Take charge today to turn those struggles into blessings! The Book of James tells us to rejoice in our trials? But is that possible, especially when you feel like you are stuck in a spin cycle and the best you can do is take one more breath before you get dunked again? Is it possible during a 3-year pandemic that has challenged many of us in ways we never imagined? There were days during the past few years that I have felt like I was in a movie. Movies can teach us a lot of things and the best movies, the ones that make you sigh with a confident smile, don’t just have a good ending.  They contain an underlying truth that flows throughout the storyline and builds to a crescendo.  Such movies create an unexplainable pulling inside the viewer that cries out, ‘there’s more than what you can see, there’s a deeper truth here’. Though it is not a movie, that is what I sense when I read the book of Job in the Old Testament.  If the story were just, ‘Job got tested, lost everything and got back more than he had before,’ then I’d say, “No thanks, I’d rather keep what I have and skip all the trauma.” But there is something deeper going on under all of Job’s trials and tribulations. This deeper something going on in Job’s story can be a powerful resource for all of us as we continue through Covid’s waning days and experience life’s other challenges. Digging In In the book’s very first verse we learn that Job “was a blameless and upright man who feared God and avoided evil.” Job was a good man, an exemplary man, and if anyone should be spared calamity, it should be this man.  I used to expect that because I was doing the right things, because I dedicated my life to God and desired to follow Him, that my life path would be smooth—at least somewhat.  But my life experience has managed to eradicate that thought from my mind. Job reminds us that God doesn’t guarantee an easy life to anyone, not even his friends. God’s only guarantee is that he will walk with us in the struggle! Job loses everything, and I mean everything.  By the end, he contracts a skin disease that makes leprosy look like eczema.  And all the while, he refuses to curse God.  Keep in mind, Job doesn’t have the Bible to fall back on. All he has are stories passed down through generations about who God was and how God operated. At some point, he made a choice--the same choice each of us must make: Will we follow what we cannot see to gain what we cannot deny? After enduring tremendous agony and loss, Job wishes he had never been born.  This was no flippant teenage tantrum following a lovers-quarrel and break-up. Job had been pushed beyond any reasonable breaking point. All his wealth was gone, all his livestock, his land, buildings, servants, and most tragic of all, his children were all dead. And rubbing salt in the wound, his skin disease was like a constant drum beat reminding him of his losses. Just in Time It is at this point, in Chapter 38, that God finally corrects Job.  You might expect this would be a good time for God the comforter to wrap His arms around him, or God the warrior king to come kick the enemy to the curb. But instead, God speaks in correction.  It may be hard for us to grasp it, but Job needed that particular response from God more than he needed any other response. How can I say this with confidence? Because God always knows what we need.  God gives us what leads to growth, to wholeness, and to salvation—if we let it. Our part is to decide if we trust that what God is doing is for our own good. The beautiful, underlying truth that has been flowing underneath Job’s story line finally surfaces at the start of Chapter 42 where Job confesses, “By hearsay I had heard of you, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore, I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes.” In this single verse we find the crux of Job’s journey. That sense that there was more than we could see, a deeper truth we could sense but not name, has now become apparent. Up till this point, Job has heard about God from others. His knowledge of God has been “hear say.” But the devastation he has walked through has become a path that allows him to see the one and true God directly, with his own eyes. If God wanted to meet you face to face, if He wanted to be closer to you than you could imagine, what would you be willing to endure for that to happen? Can you choose to see these last two years as a sacrifice of worship to God? Can you look at all the trials in your life, all the losses and hardships, and discern God’s mysterious will working through them? Take a moment now and offer your trials to Him as worship, and then rest in the peace that comes rushing in!