I’m so glad to know that there is no struggle we face that is greater than our Lord’s strength to carry us through to the other side of trouble.
This has been true in my life and this has been true in yours.
Even in those times when our faith wavered and we toyed with the idea of trusting our own wisdom and strength, God’s mercy and protection continued.
He knew then that we were clay people still being refined and strengthened in the fire and Her patiently loved us, provided for us, put hedges of protection around us and waited for the light bulb of spiritual realization to come on in our hearts.
And it did.
Thank God.
A well-known verse that helps me many times is Proverbs 3:5-6. You know it. It says that we are to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understanding. In all our ways, we are to acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths.
When I do this, my life and ministry are better. When I don’t, they’re not.
It’s that simple.
I share this information today because of a passage in today’s reading from the One-Year Bible.
“The righteous may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers them from them all” (Psalm 34:19)
The fact is that a saving relationship with Jesus Christ is not intended to save us from facing problems in this life, but instead to save our souls into an eternal life where there will be no more problems but instead eternal bliss.
In His mercy, God does deliver us from many of our earthly problems, whether they be physical, emotional or financial. But earlthy deliverance is not why Jesus died on the cross.
Our deliverance into eternal, holy fellowship with the Father and His children is why Jesus died on the cross.
Listen, we’d all like to have lives with no earthly troubles. And, in fact, we do have seasons when the troubles seem to be less prevalent.
But then Satan is given more freedom to test our faith and more problems appear.
At such times, our faith can shine and our God can be exalted.
We simply have to trust more than ever that our help comes from on high and that the Lord will deliver us from the problem, whether in the short term by guiding us into resolving the problem or in the long-term by strengthening and guiding us to live with the problem until we graduate to glory.
Either way, we’ll be delivered.
We’ll be refined.
God will be glorified.
And isn’t that what it’s all about, anyway?
As always, I love you
Martin
