I will praise the LORD.

I will more than likely lose my job next Thursday. After 18 1/2 years of a steady pay check, I don't know where the money is going to come from. Yeah, there is unemployment, but that is not a permanent solution. Wednesday these verses were provided in my daily devotional.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. For the director of music. On my stringed instruments.

In the time these words were written, figs, grapes, olives, sheep and cattle were food and wealth. The writer commits to praising God even if everything he owns fails.

That's where I am right now. Because of poor fiscal planning, I'm about a month away from total financial collapse. Yet I am choosing to praise the Lord.

He is not up in heaven wringing his hands wondering what to do next with me. He knows exactly what I am going through and how he is going to bring me through this trial. Even if poverty is to be my future God has a plan for me. It's not easy giving up my dreams, but my dreams were not His dreams. I did not include Him in my plans. Now he has my attention.

I'm reminded of the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:12 "I know what what it is to be in need, I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."

I believe that secret is knowing that God is control. God has a plan. God will get you through. And knowing with a heart felt trust and not an intellectual head knowledge.

Praise God.