You think you have lost everything by leaving that place, but tell me, what did you really possess there? A body worn down by abuse, a soul crushed daily under the heel of cruelty. That is not health; that is a sickness unto death. If a house is burning, do you call it a mistake to flee the flames because now you must sleep outdoors? Outdoors under the mercy of God is safer than perishing in a collapsing roof of iniquity. You say your health deteriorates, you cannot afford rent, you see only tragedy for thirty years. I hear the cry of a soul that has never yet laid hold of its true treasure. For so long you looked for joy in a job, a stable home, the good will of others, and those things failed you. Should that surprise us? Is it not the common lot of fallen mankind? Even the blessed Job, when his children died and his body broke out in sores, did not look back and say, “If only I had never fathered those children, if only I had never labored.” No, he had exercised his soul in freedom from despondency long before the storm. So when ruin came, he did not utter a rash word against God. You, too, are now in the arena. Your adversary is not poverty, not sickness, not the threat of the streets, but despair. And despair is a liar.
God delivered you from that torment not so that you might run back to it in thought and regret, but so that you might learn a different kind of health. A physician draws out the fever not to send the patient back to bed with more aches, but to teach him to prize his recovered strength and walk in wisdom. What then? Will you use this deliverance only to long for the chains again? The very fact that your body fails and your money is gone, this is God stripping the things that hid your soul from your own eyes. When every earthly prop is kicked away, then you must either fall into the abyss or learn to fly with wings you did not know you had. Which will it be? You say, “I cannot remember a single day of true joy in thirty years.” And I answer: you were seeking joy among thorns. A man who tries to drink from a broken cistern will always taste dust. The joy that Christ gives is not like the world’s merriment; it is a deep well springing up inside, untouched by landlords or decaying flesh.
I do not minimize your suffering. To be homeless, to be sick without relief, that presses hard. But is it any harder than what the saints have endured? Hear this: many who are sick become healthy, and many healthy ones through carelessness fall into ruin. The man on the pavement, if he clings to God with both hands, may be more secure than the rich man who sits in church congratulating himself. Do not whisper in your heart, “No one can help me.” That is to make man your helper and not the Maker of man. Of course human help has failed, it always fails, just as every idol finally topples on its worshiper. But the Lord has not failed. He wants the best for you, yes, but you have mistaken the best for a full belly and a soft bed. His best is your sanctification, your eternal life, your soul transformed into the likeness of his Son. If a few years of hardship in a mortal body serve that end, would you trade it for an eternity of regret?
I know you have been abused by people. So was Christ. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. Yet he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. You thought the Lord wants the best for you, and so he does. Perhaps this bitter road is his best, because it leads to a country where no one shall make him afraid. The alternative is a smooth path to destruction. Take hold of that hope. Lay up your treasure in heaven, where moths cannot eat it and landlords cannot evict you. That is not a mere pretty saying; it is the one stable economy in the universe. What you store there by patient endurance and trust, these bear fruits that never die. You cannot now afford the rent? Then give your sorrow to God, and let it be the seed of a far better dwelling. I do not say this as one who has never felt the sting of loss, but as a fellow struggler who has seen thousands of souls find riches in their poverty when they abandoned all to cling to the love of God with both hands.
Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees. You are not yet in your grave. Because you have fallen, you must arise. And the same Lord who commands the dead to awake and stand upright will raise you, if you will stop staring at the ruins and look to the Builder. Despondency is a worse fever than any bodily ailment; refuse it entry. Even now, in this moment, you can begin to possess that spiritual joy which is the untold treasure of the blessed life. Not a joy that depends on a pleasant morning, but a joy rooted in the unchangeable God. I have seen men with nothing but the rags on their backs, dying in the streets, whose faces shone because they had Christ and Christ had them. That, my soul, is what the Lord wants for you. He will not withhold it; do not withhold your will. Pray, yes, but also arise. The door of that abusive workplace is shut; let it stay shut. The door of heaven is open, and no one can close it. Enter by that narrow gate, and you will find the true joy whose memory the past thirty years never gave you, because it comes only by losing everything else and gaining Christ.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
