Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Luke 15-16
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 26:42
Jesus: Father, if there is no other way for this cup to pass without My drinking it—then not My will, but Yours be done.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Sometimes those are really hard words to mean. They’re easy to say, but hard to live up to. Jesus knew what was coming and didn’t want to go through it. He knew the agony the Romans could inflict on the human body. He’d seen it enough as His countrymen hung on crosses for the crimes they committed against the state. But He was innocent of those crimes, yet knew He would soon face the executioners punishments soon Himself. He didn’t want to pass through that ordeal.
I’m sure if you’ve listened to God long enough, you’ve faced some of those times, too. Things come into our lives we just don’t want to go through. We would rather skip those chapters of our lives and take the easier road if it’s possible. Sometimes it’s just not possible and still be in the Father’s will, though. I remember when I first told my father, that I was called to preach. His answer to me was, “If you can do anything else and be in God’s will, do it.”
I didn’t understand then why he would give me that advice. I do now as I’ve lived under the pressures of ministry and the burden of watching men and women you know are under the conviction of God’s Spirit walk away from Him. But that feeling, is nothing compared to the burden Jesus carried to the cross for us. He carried our sins on His shoulders. In fact, the Father for a short time turned His back on His Son because of the filth of sin He carried for us. Forsaken by His Father. Jesus didn’t want to do it. But it wasn’t His will He was concerned about. It was His Father’s will He would carry out, no matter what.
You can point to situations, circumstance, events in you life you’d not walk through if you could avoid them. I know I would. Painful times that I want to forget. Yet it’s in those painful, almost unbearable times that God seems to call to us and makes us stronger, like iron forged in the furnace. Tempered by the heat it becomes stronger and more durable. That’s what God often does to us in those difficult times we sometimes face.
At other times, I think God takes us through those valleys to prepare us for the next challenge we might face or to give us the tools we need to help someone we will meet on our journey of life. My first three promotions in the Army happened on time, but only after a my name didn’t appear on the promotion list and a multitude of errors were corrected in my records. I felt what it was like to be “passed over” because my name wasn’t on the list. No one knew what to say. Some treated me like a leper. Some knew I must have done some terrible thing in the past to deserve results. Few recognized the possibility of mismanagement of information when the Army transferred from paper to microfiche to electronic records.
But those promotion problems helped me empathize with other officers and NCOs not selected for promotion or schools or commands. I knew what it felt like. I knew what the possibilities might be, also. I knew how to help and how to keep spirits up even in the face of what could be career ending decisions. I’d been there. It took six to nine months to get to the bottom of the problem each time and then end up with a point–5 promotion number. So even when the problem was solved, until the magic day arrived and my name came out on orders, no public documents listed me as promotable during those interim months.
We go through those difficult times for a reason. We may never know this side of eternity in many cases why God let us endure those things. But looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I can almost always see where God has drawn me closer to Him, helped me grow spiritually through the ordeal, or taught me lessons I could use to share with others once I’d been through the problems myself.
It’s easy to say the word, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” It’s much harder to live through the reality of those words as we actually sojourn through life. But the rewards of letting God have His way in our life always turns out best. For His Son, it meant death on the cross, but it also meant experiencing resurrection power three days later. For my promotion debacles it meant a few months of investigative work figuring out what disappeared in records, reconstructing reports, awards, certificates, schools, and so forth. But in the end, promotions came, I could help so many others along the rest of my thirty year career that I would never have known how to help had I not gone through that experience.
As a child of God, there is a reason you face the troubled times you face. Only God knows how you fit into His perfect plan. But you do. Trust Him and know a resurrection morning is coming. Just wait and be amazed at His power released in you.
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