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Key Bible Verse: Don't panic. I'm with you. There's no need to fear for I'm your God. I'll give you strength. I'll help you. I'll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you. (Isaiah 41:10), The message Dig Deeper: Psalm 27

In the late 1980s, I was assistant city editor for a newspaper that was experiencing major upheavals in management. In the process I received a pay cut and was assigned to a night shift in a dead-end position. Every night I would come home to a darkened house where dinner had been eaten, bedtime stories read, and prayers said without Dad.

For nearly two years I searched fruitlessly for another newspaper job. I [eventually] took a job in public relations, which meant turning my back on a 20-year newspaper career.

Six years later, two of us at this company were called in on a Monday morning and told our services were no longer needed. I was shocked and shattered. Just 15 months earlier, my wife and I had lost a child—a newborn son, who lived [only] two weeks.

I can say, however, that some of these experiences were blessings in disguise for the fruit they produced in my life.

It became clear that my priorities needed adjusting so that my career was not such a huge idol in my life. [And] I used those lonely hours in a dark house when I came home from work as an opportunity to write fiction, which eventually turned into my first book, October Holiday.

—Stephen Adams in Back to Work!

My Response: What positive lessons have I learned from negative experiences?

Adapted from Back to Work! (Moody, 2009) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher. May not be reproduced.

Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Dear Heavenly Provider, help me to trust in you and not in my ability to earn money; keep me from ever thinking my true value and worth is derived from my career or job title.

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