Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
We live in a culture that regularly confuses humanity with deity. The lines get blurred. It's the kind of sloppy theology that suggests God sits on the edge of heaven thinking, Wonder what they'll do next. How absurd! God is omniscient—all-knowing.
Like a rogue wave, adversity crashes onto the peaceful shores of our lives and knocks us flat. Amazingly, the jolt awakens our senses, and we suddenly remember that God is in control, no matter what.
No matter what you face, God is still in control, silently and sovereignly working all things out according to His perfect plan. He has His Gamaliels waiting in the wings. At the precise moment when their words will have the greatest impact, they will step out of the shadows and onto the stage to deliver their life-saving words.
We must not forget that as we study the life of the man they called Paul. We must also brace ourselves for some rather gruesome surprises. The first pen portrait of Paul (whom we first meet as Saul of Tarsus) is both brutal and bloody. If an artist were to render it with brush and oils, not one of us would want it hung framed in our living room.
Because of the fallout of our cynical society, you and I are being programmed to rush by words of grace and blessing and to hurry on to words that are negative. They bring us down.
When trouble comes we have two options. We can view it as an intrusion, an outrage, or we can see it as an opportunity to respond in specific obedience to God's will—that rugged virtue James calls "endurance."
I wish for you a full life, like Job’s, marked not by living happily ever after (an impossibility), but by being truly satisfied, fulfilled, challenged, useful, godly, balanced, and joyful.
It is both unfair and inaccurate to assume that most wealthy individuals have not earned their riches or did not receive them from the hand of God. Some of God's dearest saints are eminently wealthy. So? I say again—let it be. If you are one of them, you hardly need the reminder that you didn't create it yourself. It came because of His grace. Use it appropriately. Give generously. Walk in humility.
It might very well be that your willingness to forgive and move on is all that is necessary to prompt the Lord to let His justice roll down. So, what are you waiting for?
God's arrangement of things is not a frustrated plan. God is not sitting on the edge of heaven, biting His nails, wondering what He's going to do about our world. He knows exactly what He's going to do and when He's going to do it.
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