Daring To Hope: 5-Day Devotional By Katie Davis MajorsExemplo

When Hope Doesn’t Make Sense

Most days, I need reminding that God isn’t just good; He is good to me. God is patient with me, teaching me, whispering to me, pressing this truth into my heart even when it is too hard to believe. 

I desire to enter fully into the joy He places before us, and I desire to enter wholly into the suffering He places before us, because both can be His gifts to us. Both can be made beautiful. I look back at our life and I know this now with certainty: I wouldn’t trade one second of what we’ve been given. All our stories and the intricate way they have been woven together whisper of His glory, His wild pursuit of each of us. His unending grace and love and kindness reach to us, saving us, drawing us to Him. We can be mended only if we have been broken, and so often it is in the mending that we feel most clearly His tender heart toward us. Every detail of each story is His grace, His gift to remake us in His image and rename us: His. 

There is beauty to be found in the desperate and many-times-repeated unanswered prayers that have time and again ushered us to His feet. There is beauty to be found in a life poured out in faithfulness and obedience, no matter the circumstance. Often, to behold this beauty, to be reminded of God’s promises in such a tangible way, we must turn toward, not away from, the darkness. 

You also are likely facing a darkness, a storm. The divorce you never wanted, the child who walks away from the path on which you tried to lead him, the family member who no longer wants relationship. It would be tempting to just close our eyes, wouldn’t it? The world is full of deep suffering that I know nothing of, troubles far beyond my own experience. 

But there is beauty to behold in the midst of the pain. I believe it. I have seen it. We must steady ourselves against the storm. The temptation may be to look away, but in doing so we might miss the glory, all the beautiful ways He is remaking us through the hard. 

What would it look like in your life today to enter wholly into both joy and the suffering?   

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