So glad you can join me for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled God is in Control was written by Leslie Co.

Carol couldn't understand why it was happening all at once.

As if work wasn't bad enough, her daughter fractured her foot

in school, and she herself came down with a severe infection. What did I do to deserve this?

Carol wondered. All she could do was ask God for strength. Job didn't know why calamity had hit him so hard either. Pain and loss,

far greater than what Carol experienced. There's no indication he was aware of the cosmic battle

for his soul. Satan wanted to test Job's faith, claiming he'd turn from God if he lost everything. When disaster

struck, Job's friends insisted he was being punished for his sins. That wasn't why, but he must have

wondered, why me? What he didn't know was that God had allowed it to happen. Job's story offers a powerful

lesson about suffering and about faith. We may try to discover the reason behind our pain,

but perhaps there's a bigger story behind the scenes that we won't understand in our lifetime.

Like Job, we can hold on to what we do know. God is in full control. It's not an easy thing to say,

but in the midst of his pain, Job kept looking to God and trusting in his sovereignty.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised, he declared.

May we too keep trusting in God, no matter what happens, and even when we don't understand.

The scripture reading for today's Our Daily Bread Devotional is from Job chapter 1,

verses 6 through 12, and verses 20 through 22.

One day, the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with

them.

The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from?

Satan answered the Lord, from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.

...