“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
--Genesis 28:15
If these last few weeks and months have been a struggle for you… if you’ve come upon financial troubles… lost your job… or you’re looking at a future that’s pretty bleak… I have a word of hope for you today.
That word is this: God has not left you. He hasn’t let you go!
If you are a born-again believer, God is working in your life. It is a certainty. He has a plan for your life, and sometimes that plan involves hardships and trials. But every challenge helps prepare and position you for the purpose God has for your life.
Don’t believe me? Try this exercise. Think about the greatest struggles of your life so far. What have you learned from them? Are you wiser and stronger because of them? What good came out of each trial?
You see, the journey of your life is a plan in God’s hands. Trust Him with your life today… and with your future.
Give God thanks for trials that have made you stronger.
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear unto him, was sick, and ready to die. And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant.”
Luke 7:1–3
When President James Garfield was a teenager, he had little interest in the things of God. He was working on a towboat on a canal near his home, when a freak accident threw him off the boat and pulled him underwater. He caught hold of a rope that had caught on the lock of the canal, and dragged himself out of the water. In later telling the story, Garfield said, “I was convinced that God had saved my life; therefore, my life was worth saving. I resolved to go home, get an education, and be something else than a hand on a towboat.” When Garfield reached his home, he found his mother by the fireplace with her Bible on her knees. She was praying over and over, “O turn unto me, and have mercy unto me; give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thine handmaid” (Psalm 86:16).
Life is more than we can manage in our own power and strength. God does not intend for us to live without His help. He is our source to face the trials and burdens of life. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1–2). It is wonderful when friends stand with us and encourage and support us in times of trouble, but that doesn’t always happen as it should. Yet even if we have no one else, God will never abandon us, and we need no one else.
Today’s Growth Principle:
Too often we make God our last resort rather than turning to Him first for the help that we need.
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