God's strength for hard times

By Jim Shrum

9 b …for I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is none like me,

10 declaring the end from the beginning

and from ancient times things not yet done,

saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,

and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ Isaiah 46:9b-10

     It was July 2008; I had been working in the automotive industry for almost 30 years. I had started as a young man working as an hourly worker. Through the years I had gone to school and advanced to Senior Engineer. I had ten years with the company I was working for and had seen many get laid off. This time, I was laid off. I figured I would quickly be back to work; little did I know that the layoff would run 18 months.

    It is one thing to learn that God is all knowing and in control of everything, it is quite another to know that God is all-knowing and in control. As the finances go down, you go on interviews (worse yet some of my former co-workers were not even getting interviews) and no job offers come through, you rely on the Scripture that God is all-knowing, that he knows the end from the beginning.

     Knowing that He knew the outcome, changed my prayers from, “Lord get me out of this” to “Lord, give me the strength to endure through the trial. Keep me in the trial with the lesson you will have me learn but don’t leave me in the lesson any longer that needed."

At the end of 18 months the Lord provided a contract job. The job lasted eight months and I was once again out of work. I thought “Not again”. About three months later the Lord again provided, this time we were moving again, this time to Bloomington, Indiana.

     There was another period of unemployment in 2019, again an uncertain future, this time the Lord kept us in Bloomington. We all have periods of uncertainty in our lives, perhaps none greater than the one we currently face with the coronavirus. Rest assured, God knows “end from the beginning”, He is in control. It is at times such as these that we learn to trust in Him. God brings times of crises to drive us to our knees, to show us how temporary our world is, to drive our thoughts to what is eternal.
Now is the time to place our trust in the God who is control of the universe and our lives.