What is God doing right now? Why so much trouble? I asked those same questions yesterday, and I gave you one answer from God’s Word. God comforts us in our troubles so that we’re equipped to comfort others. God’s making us into comforters! Here’s a second answer Paul discovered in his troubles: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). God gave Paul way more than he could handle, so that he learned to rely on God and not on himself.
Isn’t it true that you don’t know that God is everything you need until God is everything you have? We shouldn’t need troubles or pandemics to teach us that. But we have hard heads, don’t we? Our hearts are even harder. We are hard-wired to foolishly rely on ourselves at all costs. So God puts us under pressure, sometimes far beyond our ability to endure, even to the point of death, so that we learn to rely on him. Why? Because God raises the dead! Jesus proved that when he died and rose for us. Is God giving you more than you can handle? Good! Let’s learn by God’s grace to rely on God and not on ourselves.
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