Key Bible Verse: When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown (Isaiah 43:2)! Bonus Reading: Isaiah 52:13-15

One day trouble entered the land of the bivalves. A tiny grain of sand, sharp and painful, intruded into one oyster's shell.

The oyster might have protested, "If there is a God of justice and love, why should this be permitted?"

The oyster might have harbored resentment and bitterness or entertained self-pity.

Or the oyster might have tried to deny reality. It might have said, "Pain is an error of the mind. I'll dismiss it by projecting my thoughts on a high, positive level."

Or the oyster might be stoic: "Though I'm bleeding and sore," it might proclaim, "I'll never surrender."

Instead, the oyster begins patiently to deposit upon the quartz a milky substance, making out of the grain of sand that for which divers are willing to risk their lives—a pearl, a thing of wondrous beauty wrapped around trouble.

It's more than a figure of speech to say that we enter into heaven through pearly gates. When the Spirit of God enters into you, you'll become triumphant because Christ has promised not to save us from trouble, but to save us in it.

—Peter Marshall, former U.S. Senate chaplain

My Response: God told Paul, "My power works best in your weakness." Can I guess how this might apply to my life?

Thought to Apply: Pain is a holy angel who shows us treasures that would otherwise remain forever hidden.—DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (German pastor hanged by Hitler)

Adapted from Preaching Today by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Keep me, Lord, from resenting the tests You bring to bear. Help me accept the toughening process You've prescribed for me.

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