Today’s Reading: Job 40:2-42
Today was hard.
Not catastrophic.
Not some giant moment where everything fell apart.
Just one of those days where the normal rhythm disappeared almost immediately, one thing led to another, and by the end of it my brain felt completely spent.
And ironically, the verse waiting for me this morning was one of my favorites:
“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
– Matthew 6:34
Well.
Today certainly had enough trouble of its own.
😂
I normally have a routine.
I wake up. I read. I pray. I spend some time in my devotional. I try to ground myself before everything else begins asking something from me.
Today, that didn’t happen.
Work found me first.
One situation quickly turned into another, and before I knew it, I was pulled into a full day of problems, conversations, documenting, investigating, and trying to help manage things that seemed to keep changing.
By the time I finally stopped, I was exhausted.
But something was different.
I noticed.
Again.
When the Routine Disappears
I’ve been thinking a lot about routines lately.
They can be incredibly helpful.
When I start my morning with Scripture and prayer, I feel more grounded. My mind feels quieter. I remember what I am trying to practice before the world starts getting loud.
But today reminded me of something important:
Faith cannot only work when the routine works.
Because life is going to interrupt the routine.
The phone is going to ring. Someone is going to need you. The kids are going to have something going on. Work is going to explode. You’re going to wake up tired. You’re going to get sick.
Something unexpected is going to happen.
And suddenly the peaceful morning you imagined is gone.
Maybe the real question becomes:
What happens to what I’ve been practicing when I don’t get the perfect conditions to practice it?
Today, I didn’t start with my devotional.
But throughout the chaos, I still noticed my thoughts.
I still noticed my emotions.
I still caught myself when my brain wanted to run too far ahead.
I still prayed.
I still found myself returning to the same words:
Lord, take control.
And I think that matters.
Maybe the routine isn’t the faith. Maybe the routine is helping me practice the faith I eventually need when the routine disappears.
Then I Finally Got to My Devotional
At the end of the day, I finally sat down.
My brain was tired.
My emotions were tired.
And once again, the message waiting for me felt strangely connected to exactly where I was.
The devotional talked about what happens when life feels like it is falling apart around you. It talked about praising God anyway. About trials testing and strengthening faith. About suffering not necessarily being meaningless.
But one part immediately grabbed my attention.
It talked about other people seeing your life.
Seeing strength when weakness would make sense.
Seeing joy when there is visible pain.
Seeing something different in how you walk through difficult things.
And my immediate thought was:
You see.
This is why I’m writing.
This is why I feel like I’m exactly where I am supposed to be with this blog.
Maybe sharing this journey could help someone else find God.
And I still believe that.
But then another thought came.
A quieter one.
Maybe this isn’t only about the blog.
People Notice
It suddenly felt incredibly simple.
People watch how other people live.
Your children notice.
Your spouse notices.
Your friends notice.
Your coworkers notice.
Sometimes complete strangers notice.
Not because we’re supposed to perform our faith for them.
Not because we’re supposed to walk around trying to look like we have everything figured out.
Actually, I think it’s almost the opposite.
Maybe faith becomes most visible when we aren’t trying to display it at all.
Someone sees that you had every reason to retaliate – and you didn’t.
Someone sees that you’re overwhelmed – and you still show kindness.
Someone watches you set a boundary without destroying the person on the other side of it.
Someone knows your circumstances are uncertain – but somehow you still have hope.
Someone sees you hurting – and watches you keep going.
They may never know what happened five minutes before that moment.
They may never know about the fear you had to interrupt.
They may never know about the internal battle.
They may never know how many times you almost reacted differently.
They may never know that somewhere in the middle of all of it, you whispered:
Lord, take control.
They may never know you prayed. They just see what the prayer is changing in you
I Don’t Want People to See Me
I want to be careful with this.
Because I don’t want the message to become:
Look how strong I am because I have faith.
That isn’t what I mean at all.
If anything, this entire journal proves the opposite.
I question.
I overthink.
I get scared.
I get frustrated.
I sometimes build approximately 47 possible futures in my brain before breakfast.
I still struggle with wanting to fix things.
I still have moments when I want God to just hand me the answer.
I still get anxious.
I still have days like today.
But maybe that’s exactly why this matters.
If something is changing in how I walk through those things, I don’t want the credit.
I want the change to point beyond me.
Because I know myself well enough to recognize the difference.
I know how I would have handled some of these situations before.
And I know how I am trying to handle them now.
Not perfectly.
Differently.
You Don’t Have to Preach a Sermon
This realization also changed something about how I think about sharing faith.
I’ve written before about wanting people to know God for themselves.
I don’t want someone to believe in God because I told them to.
I want them to read.
Ask questions.
Notice.
Seek.
Learn His heart for themselves.
And maybe sharing God doesn’t always require explaining God.
Sometimes it is simply living what you’re learning.
Jesus talked about light.
And light doesn’t have to announce itself.
It just shines.
Maybe someone sees patience where they expected anger.
Maybe they see forgiveness where they expected revenge.
Maybe they see peace in a situation that should logically create panic.
Maybe they see someone admit they were wrong.
Maybe they see kindness offered when it wasn’t required.
Maybe they see hope surviving uncertainty.
And maybe something inside of them wonders:
What is different?
You may never even know they noticed.
But they did.
And Then I Finished Job
Tonight’s reading brought me to the end of Job.
And after everything I’ve been thinking about throughout this book, I almost can’t believe how perfectly the ending arrived.
For chapter after chapter, Job wanted answers.
He wanted to understand why this was happening.
He knew his own intentions.
He knew he had tried to live rightly.
And yet he was suffering.
His friends tried to explain it.
Job defended himself.
Everyone tried to make sense of something none of them could completely see.
And then God spoke.
But God didn’t give Job the neat explanation Job had been demanding.
He gave him perspective.
There was more happening than Job could see.
There were things Job couldn’t possibly understand from where he was standing.
And then tonight, I reached the end.
Job’s circumstances change.
There is restoration.
There is another chapter beyond the suffering he thought might destroy him.
And I found myself thinking about something I have written over and over throughout this journey:
Job didn’t know the ending while he was living the middle.
Neither do we.
Don’t Turn Job Into a Formula
I don’t want to read Job’s ending and turn it into something Scripture isn’t promising me.
I don’t think the message is:
If you suffer faithfully, God will eventually give you everything you lost – and then some.
Life doesn’t work like a formula.
Faith doesn’t work like a transaction.
And I don’t think Job’s story is asking us to treat God that way.
What strikes me instead is that Job had absolutely no idea what the ending would be while he was suffering through the middle.
Neither do I.
Neither do you.
Maybe my circumstances change tomorrow.
Maybe they don’t.
Maybe the change I keep sensing looks exactly like what I imagine.
Maybe it looks nothing like it.
Maybe something is restored.
Maybe something ends.
Maybe a door opens.
Maybe one closes.
Maybe the next page takes much longer to turn than I want it to.
I don’t know.
And that’s exactly the point.
Today’s page does not tell me how the story ends.
Which brings me right back to the verse that started my morning:
Do not worry about tomorrow.
I don’t live there yet.
I live here.
Today.
Maybe Nothing Has to Be Wasted
There was another part of my devotional that I kept thinking about.
The idea that our struggles can strengthen our faith and somehow become part of helping someone else.
At first, I heard that through the lens of this blog.
Maybe that’s why I’m documenting this.
Maybe someone finds these words six months from now while sitting in their own uncertainty.
Maybe someone who has never opened a Bible reads one of these posts and gets curious.
Maybe someone who has felt pushed away by religion begins wondering whether knowing God for themselves might feel different.
I would love that.
Truly.
But I also realized something much simpler today.
Nothing happening to us has to be wasted.
Pain can teach us compassion.
Fear can teach us where we still need trust.
Mistakes can teach us humility.
Uncertainty can teach us surrender.
Being hurt can teach us how deeply we don’t want to hurt someone else.
And sometimes what we learn in those places becomes visible before we ever put it into words.
Maybe Someone Else Is Noticing Too
When I started this journey, so much of it was about learning to notice.
Notice the thought.
Notice the feeling.
Notice the timing.
Notice Scripture.
Notice what brings peace and what creates confusion.
Notice God.
And I still think that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be practicing.
But today added something I hadn’t really considered before.
While I’m learning to notice God, someone else may be noticing what He’s changing in me.
Maybe that’s one of the quietest ways faith travels from one person to another.
Not through perfection.
Not through having all the answers.
Not through pretending difficult things aren’t difficult.
But through living them differently.
Today was hard.
My routine got thrown off.
I was overwhelmed.
I was exhausted.
And I certainly didn’t handle every second perfectly.
But I noticed.
I prayed.
I came back.
And I still believe.
Maybe that is what growing faith looks like sometimes.
Not never being shaken.
But knowing where to return when you are.
Questions I’m Leaving With
What does my faith look like when life interrupts the routine?
Am I living what I’m learning, or only writing about it?
Could someone recognize God’s influence in the way I treat people without me ever telling them about the prayer behind it?
Can I trust that today’s page doesn’t need to reveal the ending?
And maybe most importantly:
When life gets hard, what do people see in the way I walk through it?
Today’s Takeaway
I don’t know what tomorrow holds.
Job didn’t know what the next chapter held either.
Maybe that’s why today’s verse feels even more important tonight than it did this morning.
I don’t have to live tomorrow yet.
I don’t have to figure out the ending.
I don’t have to understand everything God may be doing with this chapter while I’m still inside of it.
I only have to keep practicing what I’m learning today.
Notice.
Pray.
Trust.
Return.
And keep going.
Because maybe someone will read these words someday and find something they needed.
But maybe someone will never read a single word I’ve written.
Maybe they’ll simply encounter me in real life during a difficult chapter and notice something different in the way I walk through it.
They may never know how many times I questioned.
They may never know how afraid I was.
They may never know how many times I whispered the same three words I’ve carried with me for years:
Lord, take control.
They may never know I prayed.
But maybe they’ll see what the prayer is changing.
Until next time… keep noticing.