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- Written by: Don Goulding
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose… (Romans 8:28)
A pregnant woman was brought to me handcuffed in the back of a pickup truck in Africa. Her village concluded she was dangerous because of demon possession. They sent her to our prayer clinic at the mission station for deliverance. Her eyes rolled back while she babbled and shrieked.
After thirty minutes, I wasn’t sure we were dealing with a demon. It could have been a mental break, or a medical problem. After much screaming and thrashing about, she showed signs of risk to her physical health. We put her back in the truck to race her to the hospital. They treated for toxemia and she responded well.
To this day, I’m not sure what the correct diagnosis should have been. It seemed an over simplification to name any one culprit. Maybe she had practiced black magic until a demon took over. Maybe she only needed the right antipsychotic meds. Maybe it was late pregnancy preeclampsia. Or perhaps it was a combination of factors.
We often cannot pinpoint the source of our suffering. Is it spiritual, mental, or physical? It my fault or caused by another’s sin against me? Pain ripples across our pond only to intersect with other ripples until we can no longer discern which stone of human sin caused them.
We may not know the source, or the final outcome, but one thing is certain. Jesus is intimate with every hardship and he is at work to bring something wonderful out of them. There is a grand purpose behind each struggle, and Jesus is all over it like a duck on a June bug.
My part is to wait patiently, trust deeply, and love well. His part is to pull my ugly inside out to reveal its beauty. He will do his part, will I do mine?
Prayer: Jesus, thank you for leveraging my pain into good.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
We are all like one who is unclean,
all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight.
We all wither like a leaf;
our sins carry us away like the wind. (Isaiah 64:6)
From across the battlefield I saw the mark on my enemy’s face—evil black smudges. Zeal consumed my war against all who wore the stain, and I fired my weapon at everything that moved.
Then I paused from the fight to refresh with living water. But one cannot approach that sacred pool without looking at a reflection of self. A smudge marred my forehead, and no amount of rubbing made it go away.
I was the enemy. How could this be? Angry thoughts only deepened the smudge.
My comrades also bore marks. One of them jabbed his rifle toward the battlefield. “Sure, we have a little black, but not like those infidels.”
But now, I knew. The stain I’d seen on myself was shaped differently, but it made me the same as my supposed enemies.
Only when I release my grip on the condemnation of others, are my hands free to receive the grace of Jesus.
With my remaining ammunition, I must turn against the enemy within. It is he who urges me toward prideful judgment. It is he who would send me to hell in exchange for a little self-confident gloating. I must target the correct enemy and not my fellow sojourners.
Prayer: Patient Savior, may I fight sin in myself and let you judge others.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. (Matthew 16:27)
Inside their high tech video headquarters, white-haired B. E. Langley and a handful of twentysomething employees gathered around a computer screen. They observed Billy Anhiester as he reached for a lingerie catalog, but tossed it into the trashcan.
“I’ll give him one hundred fifty thousand for that little decency,” Langley said.
The mouths of the three employees hung open. “Whoa, I’m definitely on the wrong side of this screen,” a technician said.
Langley was a billionaire philanthropist looking to distribute excess wealth. His staff had randomly selected Billy Anhiester. Without Billy’s knowledge, they monitored his life via electronic surveillance and assigned monetary rewards for each noble action. After thirty days, the Langley Foundation would announce how much Billy unwittingly earned. Langley hoped to spur the public to integrity when it thought no one was watching.
A technician read out Billy’s running total. “That makes one award of seventy-five k for mailing a charity donation and thirteen twenty-five k awards for polite words. You gave him seven hundred k when he refused to cheat a customer, and with what we just saw, we have two instances of one hundred fifty k for moral decisions. That’s one point four million so far with fourteen days remaining.”
“Yeah, but he’ll kick himself when he realizes what he could’ve had,” another tech said.
Billy’s scenario is fictitious, but ours is not. Our deeds are recorded and our lives mean more than we know.
Prayer: King Jesus, help me use life for your glory today.