20
Aug '19
God Uses Your Problems for Good
20
Aug '19
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold . . . (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Life is not a series of random, freak accidents. Life is not totally unplanned. Life is not without meaning. God knows what’s going on.
God is weaving the tapestry of your life, and it includes light and dark threads—happy and sad times—to produce richness and texture and color. Nothing can come into the life of a child of God without God’s permission. Everything is Father‑filtered.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that everything that happens to you in life is God’s perfect will. That’s just not true. There are a lot of things that are not God’s will. If you go out and sin, that’s not God’s will. If somebody sins against you, that’s not God’s perfect will.
But God does have a permissive will. If I go out and overeat, I pay the consequences. If I go out and wreck my body, I pay the consequences. God does not cause evil, and God does not cause suffering. But he does allow those things because they have a purpose. God permits them, and then he uses them.
God is an expert at bringing good out of bad. He could have kept Paul out of prison in Philippi, but instead he let Paul go to prison, and the jailer became a believer as a result. God could have kept Jesus from the cross, but he let him go. He let his own Son suffer and die. Did God bring any good out of that? I’d say he did!
God loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections. The things you most wish were removed from your life are often the very things that God uses to shape you and make you into the believer he wants you to be. He wants to use that problem for good in your life. There’s something more important than your pain: what you’re learning from that pain. God is in control.
So how can we respond to painful or difficulty situations? The apostle Paul says, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17)
When I read this devotion I couldn’t help but think of the many times I’ve been asked, why do bad things happen to good people and today’s devotions sums it all up in such an incredible way. I pray today’s devotion opens the door to understanding the why and you realize God is in control and despite the pain you realize as today’s devotions explains, He wants to use your painful and difficult situations for good in your life. What are you learning from your pain? God is in control, amen!
Have a beautiful and uplifting day in The Lord!
Today’s Reading is Psalm 16:8