I appreciated the message in this devotional a couple days ago, from "God is Enough" by Hannah W. Smith.
Quote:
DECEMBER 3
WRECKING BUT LOVING
A seasoned saint was asked by a despairing Christian, "Doesn't
the world look to you like a wreck?" "Yes," was the cheerful and
confident reply, "like the wreck of a bursting seed." Any of us who
have watched the first sproutings of an oak tree from the heart of a
decaying acorn will understand what this means. Before tile acorn
can bring forth the oak it must become a wreck, No plant ever came
from any but a wrecked seed.
Our Lord uses this fact to teach us the meaning of His processes
with us, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat rail into
the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, il brinqeth forth
much fruit" (John 12:24).
The explanation of the apparent wreckage of the world at large
or of our own personal lives in particular is here set forth. Looked at
in this light, we can understand how it is that the Lord can be good
yet permit the existence of sorrow and wrong in the world He has
created and in the lives of the human beings He loves,
It is God's very goodness that compels Him to permit sorrow
and wrong. He knows that only through such apparent wreckage can
His glorious purposes for us be brought to pass. And we whose hearts
also long for that fruition, will, if we understand His ways, be able to
praise Him for all His goodness even when things seem their hardest
and most mysterious.
|
Isn't that just the case in our lives and the world around us!? That is, things look a mess and impossible, and then He can come in and it will therefore be much easier to see that He deserves all the credit and glory!