Brighter Days

As dark as the world may seem around us, or as dark as the trials we go through may be, as a Christian, we can be certain that there will be brighter days! I know sometimes it’s hard to hear or understand that when we’re in the midst of darkness, but that’s exactly the time when we need to remember it the most.

Job went through one of the darkest times ever recorded. He lost everything he had, including children. Even Job’s wife wanted him to curse God and die, but he never lost faith! In fact, the Bible says, “In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” Why was Job able to keep his integrity? His faith in God allowed him to see the brighter days ahead as he said in Job 23:10, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.“ When Job finally came through the darkest time in his life he was naturally blessed more abundantly than he was before his trial as the Bible says in Job 42:12-13, “So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters.”

Naturally speaking Job was finally experiencing his brighter days, but he saw and remembered something else during his trials. He saw something that we’ll all experience when this life is over if we’ve decided to follow Jesus. Job said in Job 19:25-27, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” Job saw and believed in the resurrection! We’ll experience bright days naturally, but spiritually speaking, the resurrection is where our hope lies. For a Christian, this is the brightest of bright days. When our life has finally come to an end, we’ll get that crown of righteousness that Paul talked about if we keep the faith. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7-8, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”