Wrinkles

Job 16:6-8, "Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased? But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company. And thou hast filled me with wrinkles,which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face."

Job was clearly speaking in the physical realm but there is a spiritual side to this. Age takes its toll on us and we begin to show it, but the Christian walk does too. "Thou hast filled me with wrinkles." You try creams, makeup, injections, and face-lifts to make you look younger – and to some degree of success. But the marks of your pilgrimage; your battle scars, don’t seem to go away. You have some wrinkles that go down to the depths of your soul – hurts, injuries, wounds received from the hand of Satan, sinners, and even the saints. You wish they would never show - that some sort of spiritual cream would magically make them disappear. But every time they reappear you sigh in frustration.

Dear friends, please hear me out. You have no reason to be ashamed, in fact, you should bear your marks as a testimony of the Savior. Today’s thought reminds us that bearing your cross after Christ will mean splinters and scars. These "wrinkles" are marks of ministry – the price we must pay to serve the Lord. Paul put it this way, "From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." (Galatians 6:17). Though the devil would like you to feel ashamed or embarrassed for what you have been through, don’t let him trouble you anymore for it was the Lord who gave you those "wrinkles." Wear them as a testimony.