Tuesday, 30 October 2012

The Blessings of Bad News



When news of any serious illness arrives in a home, it leaves an unforgettable impact.  One of these impacts is that it makes you sort out your life’s priorities. You see with a very clear eye what’s important in life and what’s not.  The things we once thought were important pale into insignificance, while the things we did not give proper priority to take top spot. 

Sometimes the Lord in his grace has to teach us this lesson in this way because He knows that we would not learn it in any other way.  We all get so caught up in our daily routines that the important things in life are put on the back burner.  We concern ourselves about education and career and a level of financial independence, our house and car and holidays, but we do not always think seriously that one day we will die and leave it all behind.  Living for this world and for the things of this world will prove to be utterly disappointing when we stand before God.  Somebody once asked what a very wealthy man left when he died.  “Everything,” was the answer.  We will leave everything behind when we close our eyes for the last time and stand before the righteous God, the Judge of all the earth. 

So in the sure providence of God, we are given time to pause and reconsider our lives and our latter end.  That can only be good.  To sit back and realise that we are mortal human beings who are only here for a while, then we are gone, is good for us – if we take it seriously. 

That’s where we are right now, in the good providence of God.  And because He is in it with us, we are content.  “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold,” Job 23:10.  We have surrendered ourselves into the good hand of God our Saviour, and He will do what is best.  And in this confidence we rest.

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