Maintaining Our Integrity
Inside "The Bible in One Year" reading for Sunday the 21st of June 2026 - the first passage to read from the Old Testament came from the first two chapters of Job. To be honest with you - for a moment I flinched a little knowing that over the coming days I'd be going through this particular book. Not the easiest one to read through. But I had a flash-of-a-thought race across my mind, to look for the gold in the story. That's EXACTLY what happened. I found gold right away in the words, and I thought of you. The message that stood out to me was the value God places on maintaining our integrity DESPITE the circumstances that have happened, or are happening around us. Grieving for what was lost. Grieving for what no longer existed. Grieving for what seemingly would never be as it once was. I remember going through that when my husband became just a shell of himself. I felt guilty for grieving. "I shouldn't be grieving - he's not dead!" And yet - grief was there. Perhaps you've been wrestling with feeling grief, but at the same time confused too. Let the grief move through you rather than push it down. Then - just as Job did - worship God in the face of it. That is one way that Job maintained his integrity. He refused to blame God for all that had happened. The second thing Job did to maintain his integrity can be found in Chapter 2:10. "Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?" Job's response to everything wasn't denial or numbness. He grieves fully. This isn't a man with no feelings. It's a man whose identity was never built on his circumstances in the first place. If your marriage is in a season where nothing is resolving the way you prayed it would; or If your marriage ended - without the things you prayed for being resolved; know that your integrity isn't to be measured by whether he/she changes (or changed). It's measured by whether you stay true to you. Becoming unshakeable doesn't mean nothing shakes you. It means you know exactly who you are and WHOSE you are when it does. I had to learn that the hard way in the middle of the shaking.