Manna in the Morning

"Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet!” It’s absolutely true... we are all works in progress. None of us has reached the goal yet... not in our commitments, or our prayer life, or our service, or our worship, or our maturity... we are still growing. The Apostle Paul talked about that in his letter to the church at Philippi. He said, “...one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on...” (Phil. 3:13,14) On the specific matter of prayer, Thomas Merton had this to say about not trying so hard in prayer, “How does an apple ripen? It just sits in the sun. A small green apple cannot ripen in one night by tightening all its muscles, squinting its eyes and tightening its jaw in order to find itself the next morning miraculously large, red, ripe, and juicy. Like the birth of a baby or the opening of a rose, the birth of the true self takes place in God’s time. We must wait for God, we must be awake; we must trust in his hidden action within us.” Let God work in your life today.

Once again we turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 12 verses 9-13 for what William Barclay calls “the Christian Life in Everyday Action.” It is a very appropriate title for this inspiring section of Scripture because it touches so much of what we face each and everyday. The last exhortation in verse twelve is to be “patient in affliction.” Another translation suggests that we “meet tribulation with triumphant fortitude.” I like that. Encountering troubles and trials is not a matter of “if” but “when.” The way of our journey is not always easy... sometimes there are bumps in the road. The day of our travel is not always sunny... sometimes the storms come. The path that we take in following Jesus is often met with adversity. When trials come we have a choice. We can either be beaten and discouraged or we can face the trial with a sense of victory because of our triumphant faith in Christ. Jesus once said, “In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33) Everything may not go the way we want it to today but with faith in God it can go His way! Today is Friday... that means Sunday’s coming. Be in church with the gathered body of Christ on the Lord’s Day and celebrate the victories that He has won for us!