He holds your breath, hold onto him.

Job 12:10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

When you are part of pretty much any racing community, you really don’t like to talk about injuries, or much less death. Once the fear of either of them enters the thought process, you have lost your edge on your competition. Many will call it superstitious, many fear the power of the spoken word, not even realizing the Biblical implication. The entire Bible speaks of the power of the words we speak: Here is a great link for a short exposition of that https://www.gotquestions.org/power-of-words.html . This weekend we had a lot of injuries at the race, some bad ones within our circle of friends, and sadly a death of a track worker from possibly a heart attack or a stroke (unknown). He took his last breath, doing what he loved to do, and that was a gift from God in that. Most of us would ask of God to receive that gift, to leave this life, doing what we love to do.

The book of Job is both one of the toughest reads, but one of the easiest, when you rest in the display of God’s sovereignty throughout it. The book of Job seems written to comfort us, yet also let us realize many times our situations don’t seem that bad in comparison. Truly, one of God’s greatest men who walked this earth, had it the roughest for a season. Everything that could go wrong did, by Satan’s hand, all so God could show all of eternity the great faith of Job, and the rewards of such a great faith. God had an eternal plan for Job’s troubles, He sees the past, present, and future all at the same time. Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. God’s plans are so far above what we think is going on, that we cannot see past the pain of the present situation. We cannot see into how what we are dealing with is part of an eternal work of God, always using it to accomplish what He desires, out of a loving heart who gave his own Son to die for us to enable us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

Are you afraid to die? Are you secure of where you will spend eternity when God takes your last breath? You must grasp that you have no idea when it is time, and you only have the present time to secure your eternity with Him. The default is Hell, because God has given you a lifetime of examples of the proof of his existence, and wired you for the desire of eternity with him. You either spend your lifetime seeking him or denying him, and those seconds determine centuries. Grasping the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gift from God, and the security in realizing you can’t earn your way into Heaven, frees your spirit to live life without fear. Jesus paid the price, and all you have to do is repent and believe in that truth. Maybe God will use you just like Job, to encourage countless others in your walk of great faith. Maybe it will just be one person you encourage, seeing how you handle tough situations through your faith. He holds your breath, hold onto Him.