Life Hurts

 

There are so many hurts in this world. Our body and soul are wracked with every kind of atrocity in varying degree of horror. One of the worse is that inflicted on us at the death of our child - from one in the womb to one that is grown, but died too soon. I lost a baby in a miscarriage. At first I did not want anyone to fuss over me, because it was just a fetus, right? I tried not to grieve.

But God showed me that although my arms ached to hold this precious fruit of my love with my husband, God was now holding my child in HIS arms, and what better place for my child to be resting! I gave my baby a name and celebrated his birthday in my heart every year. This gave me hope and a blessing that lessened my grief (Jeremiah 29:11).

My beloved child may have left this mortal world, with all of its suffering and trials, but he did not miss our immortal home in heaven. Every single one of our days are planned out by God and written down in His book before we are ever born (Psalm 139: 13-18; Ephesians 2:10). God makes all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Life starts at conception, and our precious child's soul was alive in heaven with our Savior (Jeremiah 1:5). What a fact to celebrate, in spite of our sadness of never having known our child in this earthly life. God actually creates our soul to include our personality and knits our bones together in our mother’s womb. We are amazingly made as spirit, body, soul – our thoughts, will and emotions.

No one deserves to suffer the trials of life, but we all go through them. We are united in our sufferings, but we are also united in our joys and pleasures. God uses tribulation to strengthen our soul and to allow us to draw closer to Him and to one another. We can comfort each other with the same encouragement He uses to comfort us (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Prayer:

Father God, life treated Jesus abominably. His life was cut off in His prime at 33 years of life. His mother grieved at the cross and at His grave. She watched as He was scourged, nailed to a wooden cross and allowed to hang there until His lungs collapsed. However, according to Your will, Jesus victoriously rose again from the grave. He paved the way for everyone, who will walk away from sin and embrace Your will for our life, to spend eternity with You.

Thought for the Day:

God always uses everything in our life, even the bad things, for our ultimate good. 

God's Great Love

Read: Romans 8:5-39

‘Many are the affliction of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all!’” - Psalm 34:19

We all view life from a limited human vantage point. We wonder, “How will I ever solve this problem?” “How am I going to succeed?” “When will I get past this?” “When will this sickness leave?”

When we notice our thoughts drifting in the direction of the Big “I” we need to remind ourselves that the battle is the Lord’s. Then, we can transfix our affection, our thoughts, our beliefs, our emotions and our worldview on things above, on a heavenly rather than an earthly point of view (Colossians 3:2-3).

The Eighth chapter of Romans gives us a powerful message of a life lived from God’s point of view. When we look at our problems from God’s angle, we soar into the heavenly realm and leave this old world and all of its problems behind us. Think of the photos of the earth as seen from outer space. These photos put the earth into proper perspective. In the light of all of the galaxies that make up the universe, earth is one of the smallest planets God created. God rules all of creation, and we can trust Him to conscientiously rule over our life as well.

At times, it seems that our whole world just came unglued. Everything swirls out of our control in every direction. We subdue one issue and several more pop up. Our molehill becomes a mountain in record time! This happens, because in the pressure cooker of life, God softens us until we are pliable enough for Him to mold us into Christ’s image.

Psalm 34:19 reminds us that the Lord delivers us out of all of our afflictions! God already won the battle 2000 years ago on Calvary’s cross. We are already conquerors through Christ in us, our hope of glory (Colossians 1: 27). When we look at life through God’s eyes, we start to see the possibilities rather than the problems. God used a small boy named David to defeat a giant like Goliath. He also empowers us with the same ability to face the giant problems in our life.

We serve an awesome and empathetic God. He loves, forgives, aids, chastises, transforms and molds us; and all the while, He gives us His abundant life now and for eternity. 1 John 3:1 reminds us, “Behold, what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us.” Ephesians 2: 4 encourages us, "He is rich in mercy and loves us with abundant love.”

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank You for telling us that nothing in heaven or on earth can separate us from Your love. No human experience or atrocity can remove us from Your presence. We can run away from You, but You always wait right where we left You; so we will find You again when we go around the mountain of life one more time!

Thought for the Day:

Nothing will ever separate us from God’s great love.