Has your life never gone wrong? I've often messed up and often had bad experiences. You probably have too. When we seem like innocent angels as babies, we don't stay that way for long.
Before my conversion, I was in a fix with no way out.
Many people come to faith in a crisis.
But after we discover Jesus, are the crises finally gone for good? Unfortunately not.
But we have to learn to trust God even in crises. Yes, we can learn to thank Jesus for the hard times. Why?
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Ro 5:1–5 NIV
I came to Jesus at a traumatic time and I have also come closer to Jesus through suffering.
Jesus is very familiar with crises and trials and he knows very well how to lead us through the darkness.
Jesus was rejected, despised, lonely, tortured and unjustly executed. He understands all our difficulties and disappointments.
My father was 70 years old and his lungs were dangerously damaged. He had been smoking 40 cigarettes a day for years and he had been suffering from emphysema, where you slowly and irresistibly lose your breath.
The lungs no longer work and you are suffocated by the disease. My father had two older brothers who had the same disease. One died at the age of 59 and the other at 65.
He was not yet a believer and had no hope in heaven. I begged God to save my father. Finally, I began to ask God that mine would not die until he believed.
He retired at the age of 79. At 85, he had to be cared for in a nursing home. At 88, he believed and made peace with God.
When he was 90 years old, I asked God to finally let my father die because he was partially blind and demented and his life was full of suffering and pain.
When he turned 91, I thought of Psalm 91:16.
‘I will satisfy him with long life and let him see my salvation.’
Then I said to God, ‘What if you could take my father to heaven exactly 16 days after his 91st birthday.’
And that is exactly what happened.
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