<\/p>\n
\u201cFor we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now\u201d (Romans 8:22).<\/p>\n
WHEN BAD DAYS COME, WE NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE REMINDER BEING GIVEN TO US. Good days are reminders too, of course; they remind us that God created the world. But bad days should remind us that the present world, tragically broken by sin, is a dangerous place to settle down.<\/p>\n
If our hearts are set on God, we are on our way to a place that can truly be called home. A \u201crest\u201d awaits us, if we\u2019re among the \u201cpeople of God\u201d (Hebrews 4:9). But we haven\u2019t yet reached our rest, and until we do, we are sojourners \u2014 temporary residents in a country not our own, strangers in a strange land.<\/p>\n
But we tend to forget, don\u2019t we? We forget that we\u2019re aliens, and we fall into the habit of thinking like permanent citizens who are quite at home here and have no desire to leave.<\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s a dangerous tendency, God sees to it that the fields of our thinking are plowed up from time to time. In the lives of some, it may be a \u201cthorn in the flesh.\u201d For others, it may the tragic loss of something they thought they couldn\u2019t bear to lose. It may be the unending difficulty of some unpleasantness that won\u2019t go away. It may be temptation. It may be failure. It may be sickness or the specter of death. But God loves His faithful people too much to let them forget the home that He has prepared for them.<\/p>\n
What do we do with these reminders, as painful as they often are? At the very least, we should be grateful for them. But also, we should bear them with humility, dignity, and courage. And above all, we should not fail to let them have their intended effect on us. If God is reminding us, we should let ourselves be reminded and not waste the care that He\u2019s bestowing upon us.<\/p>\n
Moses spoke powerfully when he recalled Israel\u2019s hardships: \u201c[God] humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord\u201d (Deuteronomy 8:3). Some things we dare not forget, and from time to time, these things God will \u201cmake us know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy is the trouble that loosens our grip of earth\u201d (Charles Haddon Spurgeon).<\/p>\n
Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n