My apology for the tardiness of this installment, I am afraid a rather nasty tangle with strep throat has left me wanting energy more than I would have thought. Nevertheless, here is yesterday’s and today’s will be right on its heels.
We are reading the Bible through together this year, using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan published by the Navigators. You can download it free of charge from: https://www.navigators.org/resource/bible-reading-plans/
Today’s 4 readings are: Matthew 10:21-42; Acts 15:22-41; Psalm 24, Exodus 1-3.
We all face trials. At different times, of different kinds, of longer or shorter duration, and of varying levels of pain; be it physical, emotional, relational or even spiritual. And I can think of nothing more comforting for my own soul in those times than the last 3 words of Exodus 2:25: “and God knew.”
God knew the Israelite’s predicament. He knew their slave status. Their forced labor. The danger to all their male children born. Their exceedingly harsh conditions. And in the natural, their hopelessness. He knew their groaning and their cries for rescue. He knew.
And He knows your distress too. I don’t know about you but I need to know He knows when I am suffering. When the sting of having fallen into sin again is fresh and hot on my conscience. When relationships have grown painful. When my loved ones are suffering. When employment is heavy, distressing, threatened or missing. When my body is weak, sore or chronically out of order. When my head throbs, when the bills are overdue, when resources are small, when answers to critical questions are wanting, others treat me in less than kind ways.
Beloved, never be without this word ringing in the back of your mind – whatever your fear, pain, confusion or discomfort this hour – YOUR GOD KNOWS. And in due time and in the most perfect and wisest of ways – He will also act.
Maybe He will choose to change a circumstance or a heart. Maybe He will come alongside and simply hold you up that you can endure. Maybe He will speak a word of comfort deep in your soul that is so transcendent that everything else while unchanged, no longer commands your field of vision. Maybe a song will suddenly soothe your soul, inject new hope, or remind you of His unbreakable promises and the hope of glory still before you.
Whatever and however He answers, and He WILL answer the cries of His own – cling to this: as God knew their condition – so He knows yours too. He knew the depths of our distress when we were still dead in our trespasses and sins – and He sent Jesus to die in our place. How much more then does He know the groanings that still attend this life.
Your God knows.
ResponsiveReiding 