Daily Devotional – 7/11/12 “God has a purpose for your struggle”

There was once this young lady who had endured tragedy for the majority of her short life. She had a mom who was on drugs, a dad who was nonexistent, family who didn’t want to raise the child of a crack head and a world who didn’t care about what she was going through. Since she could remember she has been bounced from foster home to foster home where either the parents were abusive or the one who truly loved her was too old to raise her and she just didn’t want to go on anymore. Yea, she knew God existed but it was because of the elderly lady who had once taken her in and since she wasn’t around anymore, she no longer prayed. See, she thought God had given up on her and she wondered why would he love her and then send her into a world with so much to deal with. How could this God possibly love her when she barely loved herself? So on her 18th birthday she decided this would also be the day she took her own life, she just didn’t want to go on because what did she have to look forward too? So she packed up the few belongings she had and she started walking. She didn’t know where she was headed or how she would end her suffering but she kept on. She walked and cried and she cried and walked for what seemed like hours and when she finally stopped to look around, she realized she was standing in front of a small church. She didn’t know what time it was just that it was dark and it seemed late and as she got closer to the steps she heard a lady singing, “I pray we all be ready; I pray we all be ready; I pray we all be ready for his return.” She fell down on the steps asking how she could possibly be ready or get ready for the return of someone who had obviously forgotten about her. She got up; angry, crying and yelling towards the sky asking God, “Why should I trust you to take care of me when you have allowed me to suffer for so long? Why?” As she fell to her knees, she felt the presence of someone in front of her who she hadn’t noticed through her tears. When she wiped her eyes, she realized it was the elderly lady who had taken her in some years ago but as the lady reached down to grab her, the young lady jumped back to avoid her touch. She screamed, “Why are you here now? You weren’t there when I needed you. You abandoned me and left me in a cruel world that has done nothing but hurt me. Where is the God you taught me to pray too? Why hasn’t he come to see about me or at least let me die the many times I’ve stood at death’s door? Why are you here? What could you possible do now?” The woman allowed her to scream until she was too tired to go on and once she collapsed she caught her in her arms.

When the young lady opened her eyes, she was in an unfamiliar place. It wasn’t like the many places she’d been accustom too because she didn’t feel scared. She was lying in a clean bed, the walls were clean and she could even see sunlight shining through the window. She sat up confused as to where she was and what was happening. Die I die, am I in Heaven, what is going on, she thought to herself. Then the door to the room opened and her first thought was to run but her legs were too tired to move. A lady and a gentleman entered, with a tray of food and juice, happy to see that she was now awake and for some strange reason she didn’t feel scared. She felt like she was home for the first time in her life and she began to cry. The lady ran to her and wrapped her arms around her so tight that she couldn’t fight and she melted into her arms. She didn’t understand what was going on and what was happening but she enjoyed the feeling. As her tears fell, the lady began to speak. She explained that they had found her outside their door 2 nights ago so they brought her in and cleaned her up and she had been asleep since. She said, they were happy to finally she her eyes opened because they had been praying for her. The lady went on to say that 3 days before they had buried their only daughter who had died from a rare heart disease and that they had been praying for God to send them a sign that everything would be alright and then she showed up on their doorstep. The young lady looked up and said that she had stopped believing in God because He didn’t seem to love her. She said she has been through so much in her 18 years of living that God had surely forgotten about her and she didn’t know how to start back believing because although they seem like loving folks, they would abandon her just like everybody else. She explained to them her plans to take her own life, how she ended up outside the church yelling at God, seeing the one woman who she thought would always be there and not remembering how she got to their home. She said this must be a dream. Then the dad came and sat on the end of the bed and he begin to say, “Young lady you don’t know us and we don’t know you but for some reason God allowed you to be on our doorstep after we’d prayed to him for help after losing our only daughter. I know all of this is new to you and it is to us also but I can guarantee you, God hasn’t given up on you. See, His word says in Deuteronomy 20:4 it says, “For the LORD your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!” So, you see God hasn’t forgotten about you but he has been there with you all along. Don’t you know that if He would have forgotten you, the struggles you’ve dealt with would have killed you by now? He allowed you to endure the struggles early so that you don’t have to fight them anymore. He knew that if he allowed you to always have it easy, you’d never appreciate the hard; when they showed up. Baby Girl, God is always with you but you have to believe it for yourself. Please don’t give up now because you’re here for a reason and we’d love to keep you, if you’ll have us.” She jumped into his arms with her hands wrapped around his neck and for the first time in her entire life, she felt safe in the arms on a man.

Now, as she stands in the mirror, 10 years later, preparing to walk down the aisle to marry the man that God has sent her; she thinks back on the life she once lived, the streets she’d sometimes sleep on, the anger and bitterness and the lack of trust in God she used to have. She stands there looking at herself in the mirror as her mom and dad comes in to check on her. She turns to them and she says, “I wouldn’t be here today if it had not been for God and the love he placed in your hearts because after losing your daughter you all didn’t have to take me in but you did and I will never be able to thank God or you enough for believing in a dirty, filthy, homeless 18 year old who thought she’d never be anything. Thank you for teaching me about God’s favor and His word. Thank you for never giving up on me even when I wanted to give up on myself. Thank you for teaching me God’s word and for giving me understanding and wisdom. Thank you for being just the parents I needed when I thought my life was over. Thank you for trusting God because it was due to your trust in Him that allowed you all to trust me!”

The moral of the story; just because you think you aren’t worthy of the favor that God has placed over your life; it doesn’t mean He’ll stop giving it. Sometimes it takes struggle in order to appreciate the sacrifice that God made. Don’t give up on your life just because you feel like it should be better than it is because your life is going just how God ordained it so live it! You don’t have to be cleaned up for God to favor you because the bible says in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You don’t have to be rich for God to bless you because Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” All you have to do first is believe because Acts 16:31 says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Secondly, confess with your mouth your belief in God, “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).” And then be baptized because Mark 16:16 says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Don’t give up because you can’t see God, you don’t see air yet you trust it to be there. Don’t give up because you can’t touch God when you can’t touch light but you trust it to see. Don’t give up simply because you can’t hear God just believe that He’ll be right there when you need him. Go on through your storms and your circumstances but don’t let it break your faith. Strap it on like a shield of protection and it’ll never allow you to fall although you may stumble. God has a purpose for your struggle but you’ve got to believe it. Your purpose is bigger than your problem, so believe in yourself to come through it. I’ll share this again, “Although your problems come with pain, the pain is proving that you’re not perfect but yet a person who God has picked to be placed at this point and through prayer you’ll be prescribed a promise of praise that allows you to be purified and through this purification process you’ll prosper and through your prosperity you’ll get power and with this power you get God’s protection that allows you to prevail and once you prevail, you’ll have the patience to pursue your purpose.”