Daily Discipleship - Day 353: The LORD Gave, the LORD Has Taken Away

May 3, 2026

Daily Discipleship • Day 353 • Sunday, April 18, 2027

The LORD Gave, the LORD Has Taken Away

Job 1:21

Pleasant Springs Church • ps-church.com

Scripture

Job 1:21 (LXX / ESV) Αὐτὸς γυμνὸς ἐξῆλθον ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου, γυμνὸς καὶ ἀπελεύσομαι ἐκεῖ· ὁ κύριος ἔδωκεν, ὁ κύριος ἀφείλετο· ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ ἔδοξεν, οὕτως καὶ ἐγένετο· εἴη τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου εὐλογημένον Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

Author & Audience

E. Stanley Jones — Methodist missionary to India, author of Abundant Living, who suffered significant losses in his ministry and whose reflection on Job's worship-in-devastation speaks from earned experience.

Word Study

εὐλογημένον

eulogēmenon · Greek LXX

“blessed / praised / spoken well of”

eulogeŏ (eu + logos, to speak well) is the word of blessing and praise. Job does not merely submit to the loss—he blesses the name of the LORD in response to it. This is not fatalism or emotional suppression but genuine faith that the giver of all things remains worthy of praise even in the act of taking.

Reflection

From the writers we read together

E. Stanley Jones

Methodist missionary to India; 1884–1973

“When God permits loss, He does not abandon us to it—He redeems through it.” — Abundant Living, week 41

Job has just lost his wealth, his servants, and all ten of his children in a single day. His response is worship. This is not performance or denial—the narrator explicitly confirms his integrity. Job's worship emerges from a theology of stewardship: everything was God's gift to begin with; what God gives, God may reclaim. The giver remains blessed.

Jones ministered to people who had lost everything—homes, families, health, status—and found that Job's formula either rings hollow or rings true depending on whether one has genuinely internalized that God is the source of all good. Today, whatever loss you are facing: the LORD gave. The LORD is still blessed. That is the bedrock.

Continue your study: Discipleship School — Explore faith through suffering and the theology of Job in our Discipleship School curriculum.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, King of the Universe, LORD, You gave; You have taken away. Blessed be Your name. Even in loss, You are good, and You are mine, and I am Yours. Let that be enough. Amen.

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