PRAYER PRACTICE
SPOKEN PRAYER: Out loud, pray for God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Ask the Spirit to help you read with faith, and to live out what you hear from God through the passage.
DAILY READING
REFLECTION
Our God Is Bigger
by Pr. Dave Mann
The Israelites were in an unenviable position. They were a defeated people, living in a foreign land. They were the subjects of mockery by their neighbors and their oppressors. They were without a king, even though they remembered that God had promised that a son of David would reign on the throne forever. They were tired of life the way it was. How could the promises of God hold true when everything in their lives seemed to point the other way?
Have you ever lived in a time like that? Is your life like that even now? Defeated? Mocked by others? Tired of striving for what looks to be futile? When it seems like the promises of God fall short?
I love reading the Bible because it is realistic. Yes, there are stories of the great successes and miracles of God. But there are also abundant depictions of defeat, sadness, and difficulty. And God is still gloried, even in the times of hardship.
Sometimes our lives seem to mirror the experience of Job. Paul was stoned and beaten. Jeremiah was mocked and ignored. God’s people lived in exile. Brokenness is part of life.
Isaiah’s words echoed in the minds of the people of God living in exile. Isaiah chapter 40 was a strong encouragement, ringing in their hearts. Our God is bigger than our problems. He gives strength to the weary and increases power to the weak.
The young and the old alike have their hopes dashed. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
It is not as though God insulates us from every pain and suffering in life. But he saves us in and through hardship. Those who trust in the Lord will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Check out some of the many passages in Scripture where his people found God’s good promises and indeed God himself during times of suffering.
The book of Job, especially God’s response in Job 40
Every promise of God finds its Yes in Jesus, the one who has scars on his hands (see 2 Corinthians 1:20).
Lord Jesus, you know firsthand what it is like to suffer in this life. Your presence in my pain is what I need to keep moving forward with hope in you. I pray and live in Jesus’ name.
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