[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Wednesday, May 28, 2014

[Paul via Faith-talk]

Hello and good day to all my fellow readers on this midday of the week, although for you in Australia and Kiwi Country it's Thursday morning.  Whatever time of day it is or day of the week, I hope that everything is going well for you and yours, by God's matchless grace and His providential care.

The subject of discipline is the topic for today's article.  Now there is a sentence which you will read in the beginning of this piece which might sound a bit controversial to some of you, but I'm only presenting the article as written some years ago by John Strong.  Entitled "Doing You Good," it is rendered as follows:

When discipline occurs, the recipient is often told that it is done for his good.  I am not sure I always believe that when it happens to me!

Nevertheless, that is what God tells us.  He compares His discipline of us with that of us dealing with our children (Deut. 8:5).

I think one of the hardest lessons we need to learn is that while our Parent (God) could alleviate our suffering, He often does not.  I sometimes question God's goodness when He allows me to suffer.  I know it is not good, but I still find my heart questioning His motives and love for me.

Let me encourage you and me both to trust God in such times.  He spoke to the Israelites and told them that He led them through the vast and terrifying wilderness with snakes, thirst, and other hardships, including unfamiliar manna (cf. Deut. 8:14-16).

God informed His people as to why He did all that--it was so "that He might humble thee, and that He might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end" (Deut. 8:16).

While we may not be able to figure out what God is trying to do by withholding assistance we think we need, this verse informs us that He wants to prove us, to test us, as well as to do us good later.  Perhaps the key word here is "later."

God is at work in all of us, and He will not stop until we are with Him in eternity.  While our circumstances do not always feel good or we question God's goodness, He is still doing us good.  He says He is, and it would be good for us to believe Him and to trust that what He is doing is good for us, even if we have to wait for our "latter end."

One of my least favorite words is "wait." Yet God calls us to let Him do His work in us and to wait on Him while we do not understand what He is doing and why He is allowing so many things that frustrate us.

It comes back to simply trusting God both when life is going well and when it is not.  It comes harder when life is less than we desire, although God is still in control and still loving us more than we can imagine.

Even if God makes you wait to see what He is doing in your life, never stop trusting Him, for He will bring you good one day.

And there you have Brother John's article which, perhaps not necessarily a blessing, caused you in the words of every "Unshackled" radio broadcast to "make you face yourself and think."

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Lord willing, there will be another Daily Thought article for tomorrow.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul