THE CRITIQUE CIRCLE
BACK TO
CRITIQUE CIRCLE
INSTRUCTIONS
COMPLETE
INSTRUCTIONS HERE
CRITIQUE GUIDELINES
CRITIQUE TIPS
HELP TOUR
1) You start with one credit so post your first piece of 1,000 words or less.

2) Receive critiques over a few weeks.

3) Read guidelines and critique another writer and earn 1 credit to post another 1,000 word or less piece.


4) Build up credits now by giving more critiques to be used at another time.
YOUR CREDITS
LOGIN HERE


ATTENTION:
Effective 8-27-15 submissions are now limited to 1,000 words or less and to a maximum of four submissions per month per member. See message to left for information.

TITLE: THE COMFORT OF GOD / 11-25-20
By Ed Arrington
11/25/20
  SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
 SEND ARTICLE TO A FRIEND
My purpose for this is to get it critically reviewed and ready for submission, somewhere.
THE COMFORT OF GOD
By Edward Arrington
November 13, 2020
(All scripture quotations are from The New International Version of the Bible) (NIV)


GOD OFTEN COMFORTS US, NOT BY CHANGING THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF OUR LIVES, BUT BY CHANGING OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM.

For almost three years I’ve been taking CT scans to check my body for an unscheduled, return visit from malignant tumors removed from one of my kidney’s. Two scans ago, they found a small nodule in my lungs, but not to worry, a lot of folks get them, it’s most likely nothing.

Well, one scan ago, I returned for another CT checkup and the good doctor informed me, “Mr. Arrington, we are now following four nodules in your lungs. We believe there is an eighty percent chance that your cancer is slowing coming back.”

The doctor referred me to a surgeon who confirmed the diagnosis with the additional observation, “Sooner or later, we’ve got to do something about this.”

After much reflection on these sobering words, I understand, medically, that I’m in a ‘waiting’ game, my story continued by the next scan, but I am not in fear of dying from cancer. I am 76, accepted the Lord as my Savior, and have already experienced many traumatic medical events in my lifetime. I remember when I was ten years old in Dallas, Texas. My boyhood friend, Johnny, and our fathers went on a hunting trip in the country, on Christmas day. There was an unfortunate, tragic and almost fatal accident. I was accidentally shot, and now my body is filled with shotgun pellets from top to bottom. I was unconscious, in a coma for three days. I woke up one morning and saw this kind, gentle, smiling doctor. For some reason, I thought he was Jesus, because I said to him, “Am I in Heaven?” This happened sixty-six years ago and I still believe that God comforted my soul through the concerned care of a compassionate physician. I recall the scripture from 1 John 4:18 – “Perfect love casts out fear.” I believe the love of God was working through that doctor to give me a special kind of comfort to quiet the fear in a young boy’s heart.

My fifty-year routine of starting each day reading the Word of God, every morning, puts a sacred layer of God’s comfort on my heart. One day I will certainly die from something, but it really is true that I can ‘drop the tangles’ of my life into God’s hand and rely on His comfort to direct my path.

What about you? Are you going through something unpleasant, right now, in your life? The abiding, precious comfort and supernatural love of God will take you through it.

Because I am a Christian, I understand the highest level of God’s comfort is my personal salvation – Psalm 62:1 – “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.” God desires, above anything else, that I have repented of my sins and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

It is critical to understand that God’s salvation is intended for the whole world – EVERYWHERE, ANYWHERE, NEW YORK CITY, SIBERIA, HAWAII – Isaiah 49:1 – “Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations.” Yet, at the same time God is speaking to billions of people individually. The second half of this verse has the remarkable, mysterious, and intimate conclusion, “Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.”

My friends, you and I were born on this earth to be children of God. We begin our lives in sin, aliens on this planet, destined to make a choice to accept or reject the Savior. Our highest comfort comes when we let God’s miraculous salvation, one day carry us away to Heaven, and what a journey that will be. Isaiah 40:31 – “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.”

Recently, I found a verse in the Bible I never even knew existed - Deuteronomy 33:26 – “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun (a poetic name for Israel), who rides across the Heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty.”

What great comfort God provides, to know that regardless of the outcome of illness or anything else in life, the sweeping hand of the Savior’s majesty will result in honor and glory to the Lord.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.