SHORT AND FULL OF TROUBLE

GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS

OUR DAILY BREAD DEVOTIONS

Short and Full of Trouble

Read:  Genesis 47:1-10

Jacob said to Pharaoh, “…Few and evil have been 

the days of the years of my life.”  Genesis 47:9

Jacob’s life was full of trials.  And as it was for the old patriarch, so it is for us.  Life buffets and restricts us, makes demands on us that we do not want to bear.  Yet even the most unjust, undeserved, and pointless suffering is an opportunity for us to respond in such a way that our Lord can turn us into His own likeness.  We can take joy in our trials, because we know that adversity is working to make us “perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:3-4).  But this takes time.

We want the quick fix, but there are no shortcuts that can accomplish God’s ultimate purpose for us.  The only way to grow into Christ’s likeness is to submit each day to the conditions God brings into our lives.  As we accept His will and submit to His ways, His holiness becomes ours.  Gradually but inexorably, God’s Spirit begins to turn us into kinder, gentler men and women-sturdier, stronger, more secure and sensible.  The process is mysterious and inexplicable, but it is God’s way of endowing us with grace and beauty.  Progress is inevitable.

As Ruth Bell Graham puts it, may God give us grace “to bear the heat of cleansing flame, not bitter at our lot, but mete to bear our share of suffering and keep sweet, in Jesus’ name.”  DHR

Give me, Father, a purpose deep,

 In joy or sorrow Thy trust to keep;

And so through trouble, care, and strife,

Glorify Thee in my daily life. -Bell

God often empties our hands to fill our hearts.