I’m sitting in the car on Aldi car park. Cally has gone to do the shopping as the store is only letting one person in to shop. My Bible is on the passenger seat and the reaction is wide from strange looks to thumbs up. Who needs a study with a load of books to impress your congregation? I am learning God can be with us in the most unusual of places.

Saul’s hostility towards Jonathan is continuing.

And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted much in David.
1 Samuel 19:1

Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, told him, “If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.”
1 Samuel 19:11

David must have felt that this had gone on long enough, that he had had his fair share of challenges and troubles. Sometimes God puts us through one level of trouble only to later on put us through something much deeper and much more intense. The hostility towards David was to reach heights that he never dreamed he would face at the time when the prophet Samuel poured oil on his head and said you are to be the next king. It was going from bad to worse. What is going on Lord?
This bitter hostility would be for years.

If God has a plan and a plan to use us and the church then we and the church are able to not just withstand troubles but come out of them stronger and better. In these days of uncertainty God has not left us he is training us for what lies ahead.

It happened to Jesus.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Hebrews 5:8

This is what Paul wrote

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5

This is how the prophet Jeremiah put it

“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5

This is not our worst moment, this is our greatest moment. Are you ready to run with the horses, then beat those men on foot?

We should never be surprised at our suffering, as though something strange were happening to us 1 Peter 4:12

Suffering, says Peter, is normal. It is to be expected. Suffering for Christ in some form or degree is essential to the formation of Christian character. God is at work in us though suffering.

It’s so important that we do not react with surprise when either we suffer or you hear of someone else who has. If we do not grasp this truth our instinctive response will be to shake an angry fist in God’s face and scream out things like “don’t you care God, what are you doing?”

We have to weep with those who weep. We may experience righteous anger at those who unjustly oppress and take advantage of people but don’t let the onset of suffering, no matter how intense or prolonged it may be, throw us into confusion or doubt or shock or uncertainty about the goodness of God.

What do you choose to look at?

Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! Psalm 31:19

O, taste and see that the Lᴏʀᴅ is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Psalm 34:8

You are good and do good. Psalm 119:68

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Psalm 27:13

Let’s remind ourselves everything God does is good, and everything he is, is good. All his attributes are good. All his decrees are good. All his actions are good. All his promises are good. There is nothing in God that is not good. To praise God’s goodness is not to praise something other than God himself. Whatever is happening God is Good.

Chris Tomlin wrote; “You’re a good good Father, it’s who you are.”
Why don’t you stop for a moment to listen to the song on Spotify or YouTube and worship the goodness of your Heavenly Father. Play it more than once.

“Oh and I’ve seen many searching for answers far and wide
But I know we’re all searching for answers only You provide
Because You know just what we need before we say a word”