Daily Devotional

At the time of writing this we had just wrapped up our Glow Outreach and both our Maple and Palm sites. For those that don’t know, Glow is a carnival style outreach event on Halloween in which we invite the neighborhood around both our church sites to come and play games, eat food, collect candy, and have opportunities to pray and hear the gospel in a safe environment. It is an event that takes a lot of work, a ton of prep, dozens of volunteers, and is, at least for me, very exhausting. During that prep time, wearing myself out, it can sometimes feel like it’s too much effort for a two hour event. However once the neighborhood shows up, and you see the fruit of your labor, and hear the appreciation from those that attended, it is suddenly well worth it.

Now this is an example of one event, hardly suffering as we would normally think about it. But I think the essence of the passage still exists even in something like this. God is working out His story, His glory through us, through our lives, every day. We don’t always get to see how the story plays out. Sure we know how the story ultimately ends, but it's in the day to day trials, tribulations, and sufferings that we can easily lose sight of the hope that should motivate us to press on toward the end goal. We are here on this earth for a purpose, not simply to go about our lives with our head down and hope we get through it without too much pain. We are to be salt and light to a very dark world and as a result the world is going to hate us and possibly hurt us.

That is where this passage comes in. We need to remember whatever trials or sufferings we are going through are not even worth comparing to the end result which God is working through us. We often don’t know, and may never know until we get to heaven, how the events of our lives are reaping eternal dividends. God is using us for His eternal story to showcase His glory and we get to be a part of it! So rejoice in your sufferings and remember that whatever you are going through is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed.

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.