Affliction and Purpose

This is from the blog A Word in Season:

“He delivers the afflicted by their affliction”

Job 36:15 (ESV)

Our God who determines the way of all creation declares:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”
Matthew 10:29

There are no wasted efforts in His watch care over our lives. He is ever investing in and orchestrating our life events. The afflictions which come our way are pregnant with purpose and meaning. They are the means to deeper places of knowing, comprehending, and above all pleasing Him.

Knowing Him is always the precursor to pleasing Him. The more I understand His ways, and His movements in me, the more He can reveal Himself through me.

He whose name is the “man of sorrows” must lead me into the valleys of sorrow for me to partake and live in the “joy OF the Lord”. There are deep treasures to be gleaned in sorrow’s way. Brokenness is the temper of the heart from which His streams of grace flow. It is the broken vessel that allows the fragrance of His wonder to touch the lives of others.

Affliction is a means to God’s end. While many endure life’s afflictions, few readily embrace their significance. We fight, we resist, and we insulate ourselves from it. The One who knows the number of the hairs on our head knows our need for such deep valleys.

“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all”
Psalm 34:18

The mysteries of grace are ever near the broken and afflicted.

“The secret of the Lord
is with them that fear him”
Psalm 25:14

Hidden within the crushing weights of oppression and sorrow are keys to treasures far beyond the horizons of men. These are revealed to those who find grace to respond to God IN the suffering. Those who truly fear the Lord know that HE is sovereign and above all things. The “fear of the Lord” is proportional to the depth of our knowing Him. Those who know Him little, fear Him little.

Many go through life without the ability to SEE Him in sorrows way; but “unto them that look for Him shall He appear” (Hebrews 9:28). There are graces in Christ that cannot be learned apart from sorrow’s path, and it is in “looking” for Him that He shall appear even in the darkness.

Related Article: Suffering and Enlargement

Brian Troxel

The Titanic and the Hand of God

Last night I was in the kitchen watching the film Titanic (1997, directed by James Cameron). I probably watched the first hour of the film when Susie walked in. She said that she had seen the film before. Susie then said something very interesting. She said that John's (her husband) grandfather was in England in 1912 and had bought a ticket to America. He was supposed to leave on the Titanic, but at the last moment, he gave his ticket to someone else. Wow! And, of course, that individual probably perished when the Titanic hit the iceberg and sank. The Lord obviously preserved John's grandfather for a reason.

John's grandfather was a French Basque and he eventually made it to America. He ended up here in the Cedarville, California area. He was sponsored by a rancher and worked as a sheepherder. In my hitchhiking travels, I know that there are a lot of people of Basque descent in Nevada and Idaho.

Back to the Titanic film. There was this scene at the beginning where this wealthy family was getting ready to board the Titanic. This young man was bragging about the greatness of the Titanic and said that God himself couldn't sink her. A few days later, the Titanic was lying on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Pride comes before a fall.

God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. In God's economy, some vessels are created for honor and some vessels are created for dishonor. Example: Moses was created for honor, but Pharaoh was created for dishonor or destruction; Jacob was created for honor, but Esau was created for dishonor; more recently: Winston Churchill was created for honor, but Adolf Hitler was created for destruction. What comes into play in all of this is a tension between God's sovereign will and man's will.  Will man submit to the will of the Father?

The Basque Museum & Cultural Center in Boise, Idaho
Titanic, the Movie:  What God Showed Me
The Titanic, the Church:  A Comparison

Jekyll Island - Titanic - Federal Reserve

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God is Sovereign

2 October 2022

I was watching a video on Operation Barbarossa (World War II) earlier today. At the beginning of the video, the narrator says something very interesting. He said that in July 1944, Winston Churchill was planning on parachuting a sniper into Nazi Germany and have him take out Adolf Hitler. Churchill soon put an end to the plan because he knew that Hitler was a mediocre war leader. Hitler in power was the Allies' best weapon. (Hitler was a corporal in the German Army in World War I, so maybe he did not have an understanding of the strategic aspects of war.)

Operation Barbarossa: The Invasion That Doomed Germany (the first minute ten seconds)

I saw another video a few days ago with David Nino Rodriguez and Gene Ho, the Editor in Chief of George Magazine. Gene Ho said that Joe Biden as the "leader" of the United States has united so many people against the Deep State Democrats and Republicans because he is so incompetent. Everybody knows that Brain Dead, the fake president is a puppet of Barack Obama and George Soros--and they want to destroy the United States.

Gene Ho - Behind the Scenes with Trump

A year or two ago, I saw this documentary Sheep Among Wolves. There is Volume One and Volume Two. It is an excellent documentary of the fast growth of the Christian church in Iran. They interviewed this Iranian who said that when the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, radical Islam became the greatest evangelist for Christianity. Why? Because the people of Iran could see the true face of radical Islam. Now in Iran, the mosques are mostly empty and the Christian church in Iran is the fastest growing church in the world.

Sheep Among Wolves: Volume II (12:10 - 12:50)

If we know the ways of God, sometimes we have to let evil take its course. In time, evil will expose itself and then evil will kill itself. In our daily lives, we continue to live for the Lord and be a witness to those around us, but the Lord has the big picture under control. Satan is on a very short leash.

Psalm 34:21: "Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate."

Isaiah 55:8-9: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

God's Sovereign Power Over All People - Zak Poonen