Daily Devotionals

Job 1:21–22

Job understood wounds. The words he used to describe them were more than patronizing platitudes and theoretical proverbs. He’d been there and back again. He could write about intense inner suffering in the first person because of his own massive ocean of pain.

No one would deny that the man called Job was “the greatest of all the men of the east” (Job 1:3, KJV). He had earned that title through years of hard work and honest dealings with others. His very name was a synonym for integrity and godliness. Therefore, nobody begrudged his wealth.

Ephesians 5:15–19

I’m passionate about time management. I want efficiency and effectiveness. In fact, a weakness of mine is books on the investment of my time. Books that tell me how to replace being busy with being effective. Books that caution me to think things through before plunging into them.

Thankfully, God’s Word speaks straight to the heart of that issue. The Apostle Paul wrote about it in his letter to the Ephesians:

Psalm 90:12

To me, birthdays are just another routine realization that I’m not getting any younger. I know that because the cake won’t hold all the candles. Even if it could, the frosting would melt before I’d be able to blow all of them out. One year, my kind and thoughtful assistant reminded me of another approach I could take. She gave me a birthday card showing an old guy standing beside a cake covered with candles. On the front, it read: “Don’t feel you’re getting old if you can’t blow out all the candles ...”

And inside: “Just beat ’em out with your cane.”

Hebrews 13:3

On that icy January morning, in a 25-cent-a-night flophouse, a shell of a man who looked twice his age staggered to the washbasin and fell. The basin toppled and shattered.

He was found lying in aheap, unclothed and bleeding from a deep gash in his throat. His forehead was badly bruised, and he was semiconscious. A doctor used black sewing thread that somebody had found to suture the wound. All the while the bum begged for a drink. A buddy shared the bottom of a rum bottle to calm his nerves.

2 Timothy 4:7–8

Growing old, like taxes, is a fact we all must face. Now, you’re not going to get me to declare when growing up stops and growing old starts. But there are some signs we can read along life’s journey that suggest we are entering that inevitable period of transition.

Proverbs 26:23, 26

Leonard was a paragon of respectability. The middle-aged, hardworking lab technician had worked at the same Pennsylvania paper mill for 19 years. Having been a Boy Scout leader, an affectionate father, a member of the local fire brigade, and a regular churchgoer, he was admired as a model in his community.

John 8:4–11

The longer I live the less I know with absolute certainty.

In my younger years, I viewed most things as either black or white. Over the years, my perspective has been transformed—by the seasoning of years, the pain ofdisappointment, the reality of adversity, and the still small voice of God tempering my long-held convictions.

Now I’m much more uncomfortable with sweeping generalities.

Romans 12:1–3

2 Timothy 4:9–13

If you found yourself near the end of your days, close to death, who or what would youmost want by your side? That’s a compelling question, isn’t it? I know that as I grow older, much that I once attended to and perhaps even worried over through the yearsmeans very little now that I’m in my eighth decade. In those times of rare but necessary re-evaluation, what’s really important comes into clearer focus.

The aging apostle, likely nearing his seventh decade of life, wrote these meaningful words to Timothy, his younger apprentice:

Colossians 3:17, 23

My high school graduating class had its 30th-anniversary reunion many summers ago. Since I could not attend, I decided to blow the dust off my yearbook and stroll down nostalgia lane. I remembered a project we seniors were given before the yearbook went to press back in ’52. We were asked to think about the next 20 years and answer, “What do I want to do?” The plan was to record our dreams and goals in the yearbook, then evaluate them at each subsequent reunion. Some of the goals are not fitting to repeat, but some are both interesting and revealing: