“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
13“To God belong wisdom and power;
counsel and understanding are his.
14What he tears down cannot be rebuilt;
those he imprisons cannot be released.
15If he holds back the waters, there is drought;
if he lets them loose, they devastate the land.
16To him belong strength and insight;
both deceived and deceiver are his.
17He leads rulers away stripped
and makes fools of judges.
18He takes off the shackles put on by kings
and ties a loinclothb around their waist.
19He leads priests away stripped
and overthrows officials long established.
20He silences the lips of trusted advisers
and takes away the discernment of elders.
21He pours contempt on nobles
and disarms the mighty.
22He reveals the deep things of darkness
and brings utter darkness into the light.
23He makes nations great, and destroys them;
he enlarges nations, and disperses them.
24He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason;
he makes them wander in a trackless waste.
25They grope in darkness with no light;
he makes them stagger like drunkards.(12:13-25)
ACTS 8:1-25
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
JOURNAL
How is it that Saul becomes Paul and writes most of the rest of the New Testament? How is this possible? Because God is God. He can turn the tables and make an evil murderer into a saint. God can change the heart in the blinking of an eye. This is his world, this is his Kingdom. I get to participate in it for a short while.
That is the crazy thing about God and his word. It does not fit some neat, clean formula for success. It is messy and unpredictable and seemingly unfair. Stephen is stoned and dies while Saul goes on to seek to destroy the church. Job suffers as his friends and wife heap insults on him. It's so seemingly unfair and wrong...yet that's just part of the story.
The way through is to go through, without trying to avoid or skip around the tough parts. Just like reading the Bible...some parts are extremely boring and seem pointless, other parts are confusing and seem discouraging. Yet when it all comes together it is perfect, but the only way to see that is to go through it, page by page, story by story.
To get to live today is a gift and it is my opportunity. Embrace it and see it as the gift that it is...look at it honestly, it will contain pain and suffering and conflict...yet facing it and seeing it as a vital part of life that I get to live changes it. Just as the devotion from yesterday, conflict and struggle are necessary, vital parts of life. To avoid them is to miss the beauty of life. To miss them is also to miss God.
That is the crazy thing about God and his word. It does not fit some neat, clean formula for success. It is messy and unpredictable and seemingly unfair. Stephen is stoned and dies while Saul goes on to seek to destroy the church. Job suffers as his friends and wife heap insults on him. It's so seemingly unfair and wrong...yet that's just part of the story.
The way through is to go through, without trying to avoid or skip around the tough parts. Just like reading the Bible...some parts are extremely boring and seem pointless, other parts are confusing and seem discouraging. Yet when it all comes together it is perfect, but the only way to see that is to go through it, page by page, story by story.
To get to live today is a gift and it is my opportunity. Embrace it and see it as the gift that it is...look at it honestly, it will contain pain and suffering and conflict...yet facing it and seeing it as a vital part of life that I get to live changes it. Just as the devotion from yesterday, conflict and struggle are necessary, vital parts of life. To avoid them is to miss the beauty of life. To miss them is also to miss God.
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
ISAIAH 40:28-31
No comments:
Post a Comment