Joni and Friends Daily Devotional
God Allows Suffering
"Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all." 1 Chronicles 29:11
This verse resounds of God's sovereignty and power. God is exalted as head over all-including peace and war, light and darkness, health and sickness, prosperity and calamity.
Someone once said that Satan may power the ship of calamity, but God steers it to serve His own purposes. And when it comes to God's purposes, we have His promise that nothing will be allowed in our lives that is not for our good or that is too hard for us to bear (Romans 8:28; 1 Corinthians 10:13).
But when we say that God allows Satan to do the things he does, it isn't as if Satan twists God's arm and God hesitantly grants permission. Nor are we to imagine that once God grants permission, He then nervously runs behind Satan with a repair kit, patching up what the Devil has ruined. The Lord is never forced into a corner. The Lord is never backed against a wall. Not only is God not frustrated or hindered by Satan's schemes, but God actually uses the Devil's deeds to advance His kingdom and bring glory to Himself.
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"Suffering is... an opportunity to experience evil and change it into good,"* quotes Saul Bellow. We can do that when we trust our sovereign God who works all things for our good and His glory.
I bow before Your sovereign majesty, O Lord, praising You that all power and glory and splendor is Yours. Only You can reach down into what otherwise would be evil and pull out of it good for Your children and glory for Yourself. So be it!
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*Draper, Edythe, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 1992, p. 595.
Blessings,
Joni and Friends
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