NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

January 15

Scripture focus: When we suffer for Jesus, it works out for your healing and salvation. If we are treated well, given a helping hand and encouraging word, that also works to your benefit, spurring you on, face forward, unflinching. Your hard times are also our hard times. When we see that you're just as willing to endure the hard times as to enjoy the good times, we know you're going to make it, no doubt about it. We don't want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it. We felt like we'd been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he's the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he'll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don't want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God's deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part. 2 Corinthians 1:6-11, The Message

Over coffee and Christmas cookies, my friends and I were sitting around talking about life. Suddenly, one of us (who shall remain nameless but is willing to go public anonymously) said, “I am really mad about this issue. Just talking about it gets me agitated. I don’t like how hard it is to think of loving others in a way that conforms to God’s will. I thought that if I pleased God, my life would get easier! I was able to think of lots of things that would please God, and do them. But trying to make myself TRUST God instead of working hard to please him – well, I’m struggling. And irritated. I guess I want to earn his blessing. I want to be able to tell whether or not I’m doing the right thing based on the results. If I do good, I want it to feel good and be successful. If I mess up, I expect to suffer and experience failure.” She added a couple more cookies to her plate to ease her suffering.

My friend grew so accustomed to evaluating her spirituality in terms of right and wrong, good or bad, pleasing God or displeasing him – that she forgot to consider that trusting God might have all sorts of different outcomes. Sometimes we serve and suffer. On another day life is filled with encouragement and hope.

Sounds to me like we’ve added another good reason to pray – we need to ask God for clarity, and then spend time listening for his response. Just because God’s will sometimes offends our sensibilities, personal conveniences and logic doesn’t mean that anything is amiss. My friend might feel less frustrated if, instead of trying to measure her obedience based on the outcome of her actions, she simply released herself from the burden of judgment and instead, continues to do the next right thing – that thing that is informed by her prayers, her study of God’s words, and the Spirit that dwells within her.

Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!

© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community

---