Reflect for Christmas and New Years on our blessings over our burdens. Then walk that lighted path remembering God’s provisions. Remember we DO have God WITH us, Emmanuel. 

Let us remember to count our blessings and live more in tune through applying the Word of God in our lives now and next year. Bless because we are blessed.  Forgive because we are forgiven. Let us also turn to God for our troubles and reap His rewards for He is faithful to us.

If you are struggling this Christmas, I suggest this advice from those counseling Job, in the Book of Job chapters 4 and 5. Job was afflicted by the Devil like a demonstration sport during a time God was demonstrating His strength INSIDE Job. The disaster devil could do external damage, but God strengthed Job’s ability to look big picture. God gives strengthening to each of us from the inside too. Jesus, God with us, also brought God to bring us the Holy Spirit. We need insight of the inside Holy Spirit. 

Job’s counselor friend, Eliphaz, reminded him of God’s strengthening even though Job was suffering such pain. He reminded that the innocent survive, that God wants to hear us, wants to bless us.

“But if I were you, I would appeal to God;  I would lay my cause before him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. He provides rain for the earth; he sends water on the countryside. The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.”… “Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.”

I pray us all this season and everyday to remember to align with God’s Way. Number our days and make the most of them.

I have learned these things too… God provides.   Reflect on that… 

Reflect on…

Amen

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Job 4:4-9, 5:1-27

Eliphaz told Job (who was sitting troubled):“Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees. But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. Should not your piety be your confidence and yourblameless ways your hope?

“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. At the breath of God they perish; at the blast of his anger they are no more.

….

 “Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple. I myself have seen a fool taking root, but suddenly his house was cursed. His children are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender.

The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from among thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth. For hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

“But if I were you, I would appeal to God;  I would lay my cause before him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. He provides rain for the earth; he sends water on the countryside. The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety. 

“He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success. He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away. Darkness comes upon them in the daytime; at noon they grope as in the night.

He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth; he saves them from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

“Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.

“From six calamities he will rescue you; in seven no harm will touch you.

In famine he will deliver you from death, and in battle from the stroke of the sword. You will be protected from the lash of the tongue, and need not fear when destruction comes. You will laugh at destruction and famine, and need not fear the wild animals. For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field, and the wild animals will be at peace with you. You will know that your tent is secure; you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing. You will know that your children will be many, and your descendants like the grass of the earth. You will come to the grave in full vigor, like sheaves gathered in season.

“We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself.”