December 17, 2021

Dear Ones,

Happy weekend to you!! We are getting ready for the Birthday party here and went to Costco this morning for the chocolate cake and set up the Community room. I also made stir fry and cleaned the apartment and after the party we will walk in the underground as our regular route isn’t plowed yet. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart’

Life is full of good things but also bad things that are hard to understand. We have probably all said, “Why me?” when things have come crashing in on us. Then we look at so and so who is living a sinful life apart from God and things outwardly seems to be going well for him. It doesn’t seem fair!  Or we may read Christmas newsletters from those who have had a spectacular year and are flying high while we are barely making it! Lord, why?

I am reading the book of Job right now and he must have had similar questions for he was living a righteous life when one day everything went wrong. His children all died, and his thousands of donkeys and camels stolen and his sheep killed; and later he physically suffered greatly with boils. But he didn’t blame God and said in Job 1:21 (The message), “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth. God gives, God takes, God’s name be ever blessed.”  His wife wanted him to curse God, but even though Job doesn’t understand he accepts the mystery of his suffering.  He doesn’t play the role of victim but takes his case before God, and he comes to accept the good days as well as the bad.

We can’t avoid suffering and just because we are Christians doesn’t give us immunity to suffering. In fact, we may suffer more. But rather than trying to run from suffering or trying to prevent it, we need to look for God in the midst of it and ask what He wants to teach us through it. It can lead us into a closer relationship with Him and cause us to worship and love Him from a deeper place.

Charles Spurgeon said, “It is the mark of great grace to be able to comply in tribulation; to be able to welcome it and say, ‘Oh, the Lord is elevating me to the upper class in His school—to teach me some deeper truths that I have not yet learned to work in my heart some new grace which has never been there before!”

Let us not persist to know the why of our suffering for is a mystery, but instead let God do a deep work in us that will transform and change us to be more like Him. May our love for Him grow whether He blesses us or whether He allows suffering to come to us, for He is enough!

Challenge for today: The next time you are tempted to complain of your circumstance, ask God what He is trying to teach you.