Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
It hurts to endure life's trials, and it hurts worse to repeat such episodes. Yet, without those deep hurts, we have very little capacity to receive godly counsel or make forward progress toward maturity. The test of time is perhaps the most rugged of all.
God puts us in the wilderness to humble us, to test us, to stretch our spiritual muscles. Our earthly wilderness experiences are designed to develop us into men and women of faith.
All of us have been through the Red Sea. Spiritually speaking, believers have all been placed in God's family through the cross. We have come to know the Lord Jesus. And in coming to know Him, we have been delivered for the first time from bondage to the old life. How glorious!
Do you feel cornered right now? Up against it? Overwhelmed? Listen, child of God, your predicament is by His design. It takes those dark and dreary streets of heartache and those dead-end feelings of intimidation to prepare you for the glorious days of deliverance.
When you are in a cul-de-sac, led by God to that tight place, it is there you will discover some phenomenal surprises designed just for you. That's why Moses said, "Look, let's stand still. There's a great blessing here for us that we'll miss if we turn tail and run."
It's not over, friend. There's more out there. His plan goes a lot deeper than getting you out of Egypt. Getting you into His family was Plan A. Getting you into His will, for your whole life—that's Plan B. And maybe that's where you are as you read these words.
My personal conviction is that our greatest struggle is not in the realm of understanding the will of God; it's in the realm of obeying the God whose will it is.
The main point, the central ingredient of Exodus 11 and 12, is obedience. God spoke, some people heard and did what God said. As a result, God used them in His plan at that time in history.
Life's plagues are tough to endure—painful to the core. But God has no desire to leave us alone in our pain and distress. Habakkuk once cried out to God, "In wrath, remember mercy."
So often the arrow that penetrates our soul at the weakest point is our unbelief. We know in our heads what God has said, but it takes faith to put it into gear, to get out there and start practicing what He has told us to do.
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