What if...??

So many times I have found myself backed into a corner and wondering why God would allow something to happen in my life or in someone else's life or in the world at large. When I get confused or I get scared I go to my favourite place - the Word of God. On one such occassion I found my hope and my inspiration in the most unusual place in the pages of the Bible. I was in the index, Yes!!!!! You heard me right. I had not reached the book of Genesis, the first book of the bible... i stopped short and just kept looking at the table of contents. As I read through the table before me my mind got fixed on a thought and I was greatly encouraged.

What if God intended your suffering to…

Get your attention
(The story of Hezekiah)

Get someone else’s attention
(The story of Hosea)

Change your heart
(The story of Jonah)

Change someone else’s heart
(The story of Daniel and the king of Persia)

Introduce you to Christ
(The story of the criminal on the cross)

Introduce someone else to Christ
(The story of Paul’s imprisonment)

Teach you a lesson
(The story of Jacob’s dislocated hip)

Teach the devil a lesson
(The story of Job)

Forgive someone’s sin
(The story of God/Christ Himself)

I am sure as you go over the index in your bible you too may be able to add many more. But it filled me with great joy and a deep hope knowing that my suffering was not in vain and not a pointless phase of life that I misguidedly often ascribe to being abandoned by God. No my suffering was much more precious than that in the eyes of God. In someway and somehow my suffering was part of the big picture of eternity that God in His love has scripted.

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