What ills and troubles are currently in your life?

In all of my ills, how can I be so grieved as to want to curse God when I know that he works it all for my good. Like Habakkuk, in tears I say, “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior." Habakkuk‬ ‭3:17-18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Habakkuk goes on to say, “God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. ” Habakkuk‬ ‭3:19‬ ‭

You see the strength to overcome all of our ills and grieves and disappointment comes from the Lord. The grief is real, the decline is real, sometimes there will be no one to love us and our friends will cut us off from the fold, our lover will betray us, depression will hit us, our health will fail, we will fail others and ourselves, there is no minimizing this. It is real and raw and thus to survive it, God's strength is real and unshakeable. It makes us stand in the storm and enables us to endure the lashes that will lead us to Calvary and on that cross of pain we take our last breath, and because we have the strength of the Lord with us - we do not curse but say, Father forgive them and unto your hand, I commit my spirit.

What ills and troubles are currently in your life? Are anxiety and depression the crushing blows that attack you to misery? O, is it loneliness? Is it poverty? Is it rejection? Is it a past trauma? Is it a desire to have someone so close and they discard you? Is it a mother's disdain?  is it a debilitating illness? Is it a broken heart? Whatever it is, O, consider Job who was hit with the strongest blows from the devil, he was bashed and belted with all of the disorders of life except for death, and in all this, it is said of him, 'Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.' 

Dear friend, God is in control. Let His kindness in all of your ache bring you closer to him in repentance. Habakkuk declared when he envisioned the misery that may come that He will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. We will do well to adopt the same frame of mind. So, in all of our tears and groaning, we are joyful because God is in control. The host of hell will not rejoice over us in our misery saying look how despondent the children of God are, but as they watch us in our misery, their anger will increase a million fold because instead of complaining without hope, they see us rejoicing in the God who gives us strength. Our feet will be like a dancing deer!

K.Oni