He
who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the
Almighty. I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, My God, in
whom I trust!" -Psalm 91:1-2
It's that moment when you realize
your aging parent no longer knows who you are...when your company tells you
you're no longer needed...when someone you love is gravely ill...
It's the moment when depression makes one more hour seem unbearable to contemplate...when your loved one passes...when your own physical pain incapacitates you...
It's the moment when you wake up and realize none of what you've done in life has glorified God...when failure confronts you...when you can't pay your bills...
It's that moment when your children cry out and you can't help them...when your children rebel...when your children leave this earth before you...
It's the moment when the soul of the one you care for passes into eternity with no assurance they ever met Christ.
It's the moment when the pain of the struggles of life seems more than you can bear.
It is in that moment you most need to hear God has not forgotten you. It is in that moment that you most need to hear the echo of His voice as it whispers: "It will not always be this way."
We cannot adequately explain the hardest moments of our lives. We cannot soothe all the sorrows that regularly beset us, or the sorrows of those whom God has placed around us. We cannot wave a magic wand and fix the distresses we see besieging those we love, those we work with, those we know.
In our hardest moments, our best efforts are feeble...our best words are hollow.
In those moments, it is left for us but to pray, to move alongside each other, and to remind each other in the middle of the storms of life that it will not always be like this.
We who know Christ have a hope beyond the present struggle. Though that knowledge of an eternity may seem distant in this moment, its reality echoes in the back of our minds even as we reel at the crisis before us. Never think that Jesus doesn't see you, isn't listening, isn't longing for that moment when it no longer is this way for any of His children.
When we see you in these moments, we will pray for you, plead for calm in the middle of the trial, and seek God's wisdom in ways to help. We will ask for immediate comfort, ever mindful of the hard realities of a fallen world that means some comforts wait for heaven.
But know this for certain: It will not always be like this...
--Randy Kilgore
This week's thought: We please God most when we look with loving eyes upon His children, saved and lost. We please Him least when we look at them with jealousy or judgment. And we Christians live holier lives when we look at what people need instead of what they have...
Reprinted from Made To Matter: Devotions for Working Christians, © 2008 by Randy Kilgore. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids MI 4950l. All rights reserved. You may also find this book on Itunes by clicking here, and it can also be purchased in Kindle, e-book and standard versions here at Amazon.com.
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