Tag: Hope in hard times

Morning Musing: Romans 8:18

Leave a comment

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I don’t get sore throats anymore. Not often anyway. And on the rare occasion that I do get one, it’s typically not very bad, and it hardly phases me. This wasn’t always the case. I used to get them fairly frequently. I still remember suffering a bout of mono in high school which featured what was quite literally the worst sore throat of my life. None had been that bad before, and none since have come close to it. Part of the reason none have been that bad since is because that one gave me perspective. Perspective is a powerful thing in the midst of a hard season because it allows us to see beyond the immediate to something bigger than that. One of the blessings of the Gospel is the gift of perspective. Let’s take a look at one of the ways that can be particularly helpful.

Read the rest…

Bigger

2 Comments

When life gets hard, we often want to know where God is. When we hurt, we want to know why God didn’t stop it. When circumstances threaten to completely overwhelm us, we want to know if God is big enough to really help. As we continue our journey through the seven signs the apostle John identifies in his Gospel as helping us to better understand who Jesus is, we are looking today at a sign that didn’t seem to benefit anybody when it happened. But when we look past the miracle itself to the thing at which it is pointing, we find reason for great hope in hard times. Let’s dive in and see what happens next.

Bigger

About fifty years ago, a man named Harold Kushner lost his fourteen-year-old son to a rare disease. It was a tragedy. All such losses are tragic. Parents should never have to bury their children. That they do is a symptom of the brokenness of sin in the world. Kushner happened to be a Jewish rabbi. As part of his efforts to deal with his grief, he channeled his emotions into writing a book. The book, released in 1981, had a major and immediate cultural impact. The title promised an insightful look into a challenging question that people have been asking for a very long time. It was called, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The question of course is why. Why do bad things happen to good people? We’ve all seen it happen. We’ve seen people who seem to us to be good and faithful, kind and generous with others, conscientious citizens, and so on and so forth, but who nonetheless face tragic situations that their character seems like it should preclude as far as we reckon such things. How can there be a good and just God presiding over creation if things like this happen to people like that? 

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Romans 5:3-5

Leave a comment

“And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The Gospel isn’t just one thing. It is many things, and all of them are good. It’s the sort of thing where the more you explore it and the deeper you understand it, the more you come to find is there; the more you come to find just how comprehensive it truly is. Paul here has started unpacking the benefits of the Gospel. He started with peace, went to grace and glory, and now he takes us into territory it doesn’t seem like the Gospel should touch. Let’s talk about what the Gospel has to say about our hard times.

Read the rest…

You Are Not Alone

34 Comments

Jesus’ journey to the cross in Mark’s Gospel is almost complete. This week we are walking through the rest of Mark 14 from where we stopped last time. We left Jesus having announced the arrival of His betrayer to His sleepy disciples. As we pick up this week, Jesus does indeed get betrayed and abandoned. He is subjected to all kinds of abuse and injustice. And in the end, He is left alone to face it. It’s a pretty dark chapter, but it’s one that reminds us that Jesus has been through it. When we are going through it ourselves, we’ve got a friend in Him. Let’s explore all of this in more detail as we take the next step on our journey to the cross with Mark.

You Are Not Alone

Misery loves company. Have you experienced that? When we are miserable, we want to know that we are not alone in our misery. This desire manifests itself primarily in a couple of different forms, one of which is more helpful than the other. The less helpful way that misery seeks company is for us to try to drag down the people around us so they are as miserable as we are. Have you ever been around somebody like that? They’re like a gloomy Eeyore all the time because they secretly hope that can make the people around them as morose about life as they are so there’s at least one other person as miserable as they are. 

Read the rest…

Picking Up the Pieces

Leave a comment

This week we continued our teaching series, A Love Story, by looking at the second chapter of Ruth. Like last time, though, we didn’t simply read the story. We experienced it. Follow along as Ruth tells her own story and reminds all of us of God’s sometimes surprising faithfulness. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Picking Up the Pieces

So, last week we began a new series looking at the beautiful story in the Hebrew Bible we know simply as Ruth. In this season when we give love a bit more time in the spotlight than usual, we are exploring this truly great love story in the Bible together. And, we’re doing this just a bit differently than we normally do things. Each week we are encountering the next part of the story through the eyes of one of the characters in it. Last week, Naomi took us through the events of the first chapter. As she did, it quickly became apparent that this story did not have a very happy beginning. In fact, I don’t know about you, but I was kind of depressed when we got to the end of things last week. Yes, we were left with a glimmer of hope that even when things are bitter, God is still with us, but not much more than that. This morning, we are going to begin clawing our way back up from the cellar of life in which Naomi and Ruth were sitting at the end of the first chapter. As we do, we’ll see that idea that God is still with us even when things are bitter given beautiful form. Hear, then, the story through the eyes of one who experienced it…

Read the rest…