Dear Ones,
Hope you wake to a great day! We had a fun party last night and today we are going to be off to the cities. We plan to meet good friends from Washington state who will be coming through later today and we will have supper and stay at the same hotel and have breakfast with them before they take off for home. Tomorrow you won’t get your devotional until we return from our trip.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
I think a question we have all asked at times in our lives is: Why does God permit suffering? Exactly why do bad things happen to good people? But there isn’t a pat answer for there are many reasons that we may experience suffering, and it depends on what purpose the Lord has in mind. Our pastor is preaching a series on the book of Job, and we know Job personally suffered severely, losing his health, children, livestock, servants etc. but not because he had sinned. His friends rebuked him and thought he brought in on himself by sinning, but that was not so. A good lesson not to presume we know the reason others are going through a time of suffering but rather to pray for them to respond rightly.

As often the case we may suffer as the result of our own bad behavior and hopefully we can learn from it. Just as we also try to teach our children by giving consequences when they have done wrong, it is ultimately so they learn. We have many examples in scripture of how the Lord punished the children of Isael when they disobeyed, for He waited for them to humble themselves and return to Him.  Sometimes we go through times of testing of our faith to help refine us so we are dependent on the Lord. Or like pastor said, it could be for the purpose of displaying his power, like the blind man whose blindness wasn’t because of his sin but for God’s glory.  God can also use hard things in our lives so that we get to rock bottom that will cause us to seek the Lord and His help. Maybe we have a thorn in the flesh as Paul did but it is to keep us humble. There are times also that we may get too attached to the things of the world and the Lord takes us through some hard circumstances for the good of our soul and to focus more on what is truly important.

No matter what we go through, even though we may not know why we have to suffer, we know that the Lord will walk with us through it. In fact, He can even work good come even out of our errors as the familiar verse Romans 8:28 says, ”We know that all things work together of the good of those who love God—those whom He has called according to His plan.”

Challenge for today: Memorize Romans 8:28
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy