‘For You, God, tested us; You refined us like silver.’ Psalm 66:10 NIV
Have you tried to do right, yet things have gone wrong? When Joseph honoured God by saying no to Potiphar’s wife, he landed in prison. While there, he told a fellow prisoner, ‘For I was kidnapped from my homeland… and now I’m here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.’ (Genesis 40:15 NLT) If that’s how you feel today, God has not turned His back on you. His plan for your life has not been derailed. ‘The Lord will not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the intentions of His mind.’ (Jeremiah 30:24 ESV)
You may be perplexed, but God is not. He is using every moment of this season and every element of this experience to prepare you. ‘They forced his feet into shackles, he [Joseph] was put in irons; until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the Lord refined him.’ (Psalm 105:18–19 NASB) Do you remember how you felt about the tests you were given in school? At the time, they felt like persecution, but looking back, you realise they were preparation. They revealed what you had learned. They qualified you to move to a higher grade. They helped you better understand your strengths and weaknesses.
The psalmist wrote: ‘For You, God, tested us; You refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us to a place of abundance.’ (Psalm 66:10–12 NIV) God will use people, pain, and problems to test you. Why? So that He can bring you to ‘a place of abundance’.
SoulFood: 2 Cor 9:1–11:15, Lk 1:1–10, Ps 144:9–15, Prov 16:4–7
Renungan Hari Ini [The Word for Today] is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright ©