“So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.” (2 Corinthians 12:7b NLT)
Jim Mitchell wrote in a Family Life devotional: “I’d been waiting anxiously. This was not just any job—it was my dream job. One I felt qualified and gifted for. One I’d worked hard to attain and really wanted. And honestly, one I badly needed because my wife and I were in a difficult financial spot at the time. Which is what made the call so difficult. Well, that and the fact that it wasn’t a simple no. It was a no with the added detail, ‘it was unanimous.’ Apparently not a single person there felt I was the right fit. Not one. We weren’t just disappointed, we were devastated. Like, sobbing-together-in-the-floor devastated. Literally. We prayed and we tried to turn our focus to the future, but it crushed us.”
Like Jim Mitchell, the Apostle Paul, me, and perhaps you – what do you do when you’re crushed in a way you have no precedent in your life with which to compare it? When you’re denied something you not only want, but desperately need – at least that’s how you see it. How do ever bounce back? How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense to you?
That’s how I felt when my wife left. To say I was devastated would be to sugar coat it. I literally wanted to die. I wanted to dig a hole and pull the dirt in over me. In my mind I had no future, at least none in which I wanted to participate. The emotional pain was so agonizing I couldn’t function. I needed a job, a place to live, in short, I needed to start life over again, but I had no will or desire to pursue any of it. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I just wanted this chapter of my life to be over.
While I never blamed God, like Paul, I begged Him to save my marriage, to change my wife’s mind, to let her love me again, but heaven was silent, at least that’s what I thought. In my darkest hour I cried out to God, believing I’d lost everything. Then, not in an audible voice, but one that was crystal clear, God said: “You haven’t lost everything because you haven’t lost Me, and I’m all you need!”
My circumstances didn’t immediately change, but I did. He gave me hope that life could be worth living again. He helped me see that me + Jesus was a majority. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought or believed about me, God loved me and was for me and that’s what became my guiding light. The only job that opened up was a sales position at a auto dealership. I loved cars, so I thought: “How hard can it be?”
I was driving a new Cadillac provided by the dealership, but I didn’t have money to put gas in it. I could have papered one of my walls with eviction notices, but He always made a way, and I was never evicted. Slowly things began to turn around. The Lord enabled me to win a contest, the prize for which was a trip to the Bahamas for two. Expenses were all covered, plus it included $500, which at that time was plenty to eat and do some fun things.
Since I was single, I asked my then 16-year-old daughter if she’d like to go with me and she agreed. We had a blast. She liked it so much when she got married, she chose that spot in the Bahamas to have her wedding.
So, what’s the point of my sharing all of this? Simply this: If you know Jesus, He’s literally all you need. Do you remember in Mark 6 when Jesus sent the twelve disciples out? What did he allow them to take on their trip? The clothes on their back and a pair of sandals. Why? Trust! He wanted to give them, as He gave me, an object lesson in learning to trust Him without reservation – for EVERYTHING! That’s what we need to do when God says “NO!”
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 