First, I’d like to share something with you that has been a
great comfort to me.
It is a great sadness when sufferers seek relief by sparing God
his sovereignty over pain. The
sadness is that this undercuts the very hope it aims to create.
When all forty-two chapters of the
book of Job are said and done, the inspired author leaves us with
an unshakable and undoubted
fact: God governs all things for his good purposes.
The text says Job’s brothers and sisters “comforted him for all
the evil that the Lord had brought
upon him” (Job 42:11). This is the author speaking, not a misguided
character in the drama.
Whatever Satan’s liberty in unleashing calamity upon us, God never
drops the leash that binds
his neck.
...James rounds out the picture with his interpretation: “You have
heard of the steadfastness of
Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is
compassionate and merciful”
(James 5:11). In other words, the Lord is sovereign, and the Lord
is sweet.
Pain and loss are bitter providence's. Who has lived long in this
world of woe without weeping,
sometimes until the head throbs and there are no more tears to lubricate
the convulsing of our
amputated love? But O, the folly of trying to lighten the ship of
suffering by throwing God’s
governance overboard. The very thing the tilting ship needs in the
storm is the ballast of God’s
good sovereignty, not the unburdening of deep and precious truth.
What makes the crush of
calamity sufferable is not that God shares our shock, but that His
bitterprovidences are laden with the bounty of love.
I pray that you will be helped to endure till healing. One who suffered
more than most wrote:
“To live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Which
of these will be our portion, God
himself will decide.
The great purpose of life is not to stay alive, but to magnify-whether
by life or by death-the One
who created us and died for us and lives as Lord of all forever,
Jesus Christ. I pray that his
sovereign goodness will sustain us in the unyielding joy of hope
through every flame of pain and
flood of fear. Excerpted from The Misery of Job and the Mercy of
God, by John Piper.
A Brother Loved Ronnie loved being a husband to Nicole, he loved being a Daddy
to Cora Lee- his “pippy dippy”.
He loved his family and friends. He loved being a Trooper- he was
a cop’s cop. Ronnie was very
loved, he was special. And now he is with Christ. I don’t say this
out of whimsy, I say this
because it is true. It is true because Ronnie trusted in Christ.
He was a man of faith. When you
remember him, remember him that way.
All things happen for a reason. God has a purpose in everything
He does. Although I’ve been
struggling for days to find His purpose in taking Ron from us, I
believe I have found it. His
purpose is that we may see the beauty of Christ. And I know that
is what Ronnie wants us to see
now ~ he is seeing it fully. God wants to use him to share a glimpse
of it with us. Ronnie was
brave and loyal and tenderhearted. We could see these qualities
in him even as a child. God’s
hand of blessing has been upon him and it will be upon us. And if
you look, you too will see the
beauty of Christ.
I think maybe I’m a little bit afraid of this soon-to-be world without
Ronnie. It wasn’t as though I
grabbed for my big brother’s hand at each and every sequential stumble.
It was that I never
doubted his hand would be there if ever it was needed. And so big
brother, thank you for
everything- I love you, buddy!
Cathy's
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