Blog #1017

God is good and He is in complete control. But that doesn't necessarily mean bad things will not happen in the life of the believer. Is it within the power of God to give us perfect lives, untouched by trouble or harm? Yes, it is, but as difficult as it is for us to understand, that wouldn't be in our best interests. Tough times, trials, pain, and hardships often drive people to seek out God in their lives. And for those of us who are already His children, God uses these difficult times to shape our faith and conform us into the image of His Son. Suffering transforms our faith and matures our walk with Him. We mature in ways that only suffering can make us grow. Paul wrote, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (2Cor 4:17 NIV). To be made perfect and pleasing to our heavenly Father is what's in our best interests.

In His role as God, in His omniscience and wisdom, God will often allow disaster and evil to touch our lives so that we can grow from the experience. Growth in compassion, trust, hope, and knowledge is always good. If we could peek behind the curtain of our lives, we'd see God in complete control at all times, guiding us gently toward the ultimate goal He has for us ... perfection in Christ.

Romans 8:28 affirms this. The New Century Version reads: "We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. They are the people he called, because that was his plan." Occasionally we are privileged to see positive results from trials and sufferings. But at other times, we must wait days, months, even years to fully understand what God was doing in those difficult times for us. And we must face the fact that there are some things we may never understand on this side of eternity. Do we have the faith to trust God completely even during these trials and hardships?

Suffering and evil are inevitable parts of a fallen and fractured world. But we have assurance that God is in control of the universe, including the tiny portion we occupy. When He permits bad things to happen to us, we can be sure that He will continue to supply us with comfort and guidance, even as He uses these unfavorable circumstances to shape us into the people He desires us to be. We must trust that God wants only the best for us and He can turn the worst circumstances unto refiner's tools, smoothing our rough edges and perfecting us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. He will not leave our formation to mere chance. He knows where we are lacking and He knows how to turn that need into abundance. We must learn to trust Him during these times, that God can and will produce good out of every circumstance regardless of whether or not we can see and understand the benefits.

********

Our Thanksgiving dinner turned out perfect yesterday and I hope yours did too. Everything turned out just right. However it was one of those times when, only by the grace of God, everything turns out just as it should. We tried our best to mess everything up, or Michael did anyway. (Poor guy, I teased him that he might be in the "home" next Thanksgiving. LOL). He cooked the bird for an hour and a half with the oven set at 250 degrees instead of 350 so we had to rely totally on the meat thermometer to judge when it was done. And then, after we took the dressing out of the oven I put in the pumpkin pie for dessert. The timer went off in exactly 80 minutes and I started to take the pie out of the oven only to discovered that Michael had mistakenly turned off the oven so I had to guess how long it needed to cook since some cooking had happened as the oven cooled off. But like I said, in spite of ourselves, dinner was perfect. Makes me kinda wish we'd had someone to share it with. But I did enjoy it just being the two of us for a change.

I have no plans for today other than to go out to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription refill I called in on Wednesday. And I'll get the mail while I'm out. We don't need anything from the store so it'll just be a quick trip out and back. I think I'll try to get caught up on some of my reading today. I've got several books started and maybe I can concentrate on finishing them.

Weeks go by so fast anymore. Everywhere we go now it's going to be Christmas. Of course many of the stores already had Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving. Personally I think it wouldn't hurt the retailers to wait until after Thanksgiving to put up all their decorations and displays. Let's finish being grateful before we slide into greed and avarice! I'm not in the Christmas mood yet even though I've been singing Christmas songs for the past few days or so. (That's brought on, I'm sure, by TV commercials playing Christmas songs!)

We are coming to the close of the 40 Days of Purpose campaign. Seems like we just started. Of course that means a lot coming from me since I was part of the prayer team and we started our work 8 weeks before the start of the campaign. So it will be 15 weeks for me and the time still seemed to fly by.

Well, I have nothing more to write about so I guess I'll go get my chores done. No blogging over the weekend (unless I feel the urge) so I guess that means I'll see you on Monday ...