What a mighty God we serve! I am so thankful that He is mine and I am
His. God indeed is a good God and I had
the opportunity this week to share His goodness with a friend.
I have recently come to know this person. He likes
to joke around, especially about dying.
He often says, “If only God would kill me. I have been begging Him for years to let me
die. God has a sick sense of humor”, this he says with a smile and laugh. People
need the Lord my friends. I’m not sure
how the conversation with him started, but God gave me the opportunity to share
His love with him and to listen to his hurt, pain and regrets.
My friend lost his wife many years ago to
cancer. He could not understand why a
loving God would allow his wife to have cancer, suffer and die. He said, “I was the one who did all the bad
things. I drank, did drugs and a host of
other things, why her? I once was a
believing man, but not anymore”. Out of
their pain and anger, he and his wife came to the conclusion that God is not
real, the Bible is a collection of fairy tales and they both turned away from
God. In his own words, he said, “to hell with God”. When the doctors told him his wife had only a
few days to live, he asked his wife if she wanted to speak with a minister or a
priest, she declined. His wife also requested to not have a funeral, but to
just bury her, which he honored. Jesus! Jesus!
I listened quietly to my friend and then I shared
the love of Jesus with him. As I spoke with him, I saw the hurt and anger on
his face. More importantly, I noticed he
was fighting back tears. He is very
bitter and hardened by the trials of life. And even though he says he still does not
believe, I know that God is still at work in him. My role in this is to continue to pray for him
and show him the love of God.
Let’s be real my friends. We have all experienced the loss of a loved
one or a friend. We have experience pain, hurt, trials and tribulation. John 3:16 says,
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have
peace. In the world you will have tribulation;
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
We must come to the place where our faith and trust
in God becomes greater than our circumstances. We may not understand it all,
like it all or even agree, but God is sovereign.
Finally my friends, let us take a moment today to
pray for our family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. You never know what someone may be going through.
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