Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; (James 5:13-14)

All of us have moments that bring about a lot of feelings and bring a loss of words or even a loss of direction for a way forward. We are challenged when we come to a point that we don’t know what to do. Too often, we start to do what feels best for us instead of what the Lord has called us to do or we move toward hopelessness and shut down because we are overwhelmed. This dilemma is not new for us but is something the early church wrestled with too. James gave the reminder in this passage that there is a way forward, regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. Whether it is a time of celebration or a hard season we are facing, we don’t have to abandon our faith or try to make it through life on our own. We never get to the point that we are so self-sufficient that we have no need for God or get to a place that He won’t meet us. In each season we need Him. In all of life, we are dependent on Him and can lean on the community of the church to walk through good times and hard.

What kind of season of life are you in? Has it been a time of hardship or one of ease? Are you pressing into God or feeling like you could do life without Him? The cases we find ourselves in will be different, but the answer is the same: We need God. At each point of our life and with every victory and hardship, we need Him. He always gives a way forward.

• What season of life are you in? How have you been pressing into God and connecting with the family of God around you?
• What are some times in life that you have felt distant from God or were not living in dependence on Him?
• Pray and thank God for always giving you a way forward, no matter what you are going through.