Do you remember the prayer for boldness? (Acts 4) Enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Today there is an answer to this prayer. Today!

Reading from Job, we hear the deep pain of a man who has experienced one horrible thing after another. Even Job wonders what he’s done something to deserve all this. Tell me, God. What have I done? A friend visits who also tells him that he must have done something, because God would not send such calamity for no reason. Of course, we will discover that God was not the source and Job did not deserve any of this and there will be signs and wonders (but I’m getting ahead of the story).

In Acts 12, we read of signs and wonders. James, the brother of John, is executed and it appears that will be Peter’s fate as well. The account of what happens could have focused on the days that Peter was in prison – naked, in chains, a guard on either side at all times, knowing how this had played out for a fellow disciple. We are not told what Peter was thinking while in prison. We are told that the “church was earnestly praying to God for him” (how might the situation have been different if Job’s friends had been praying to God for Job). And we read of signs and wonders.

As I read from Job and Acts, I hear a message for my life. Focus on the signs and wonders of God. How can focusing on pain and suffering and what has not happened be at all helpful to me? Focus on what God has done, can do, and will be. When my prayers address the greatness of God, I am lifted to a place above and beyond my current situation. Remember the prayer for boldness in the name of Your holy servant Jesus. Amen.

Today’s readings: Job 6-8; Acts 12