June 24

“The psalmist David declared that all things are God’s servants (Ps. 119:91).....While the Lord does not inaugurate the evil, when that evil is directed against His children, He makes it His ‘servant’ to carry them a blessing.  All things are yours not to trouble you and do you harm but to bless you and do you good.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 6/24

This is a hard truth.  We all have something we fear and don’t think anything good could possibly come out it.  The big one on the list is losing a child.  And we’ve all heard horror stories on the news of a child being kidnapped.  That is not the time to quote a Bible verse to the parents about the blessing in it for them.  The key is “evil directed against His children.”  If we are a child of God through Jesus Christ, all things become God’s servant.  We may get ourselves into a predicament, or we may be an “innocent bystander,” but in either case God can use it to bring us a blessing.  Many people have had the course of their lives changed by a tragedy.  It’s not that God sent the tragedy, but because we live in a fallen world we can’t escape them.  But they don’t have to defeat us or make our lives not worth living.  God will use it to bring us closer to Him--a far greater blessing than most of us appreciate.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”  Romans 8:37