Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Right and Left (07/31/14)
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TITLE: Expert Testimony | Previous Challenge Entry
By Margo McKenzie
08/07/14 -
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When life is moving in the right direction, “God is good all the time” is our mantra. We are comfortably sitting in our reserved seat “at the right hand of God” enjoying the spoils of our inheritance as a child of the Most High. Everywhere we look the presence of God is confirmed in our lives.
We feel strong and powerful. Our tree is bringing forth its “fruit in its season.” (Psalm 1:3 NIV) It’s easy to “enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.” (Psalm 100:4 NIV)
Then the challenges come: a doctor tells us that we must learn to live with an incurable disease or our spouse sustained a heart attack, and we must come to the hospital immediately or our child did not get a coveted position that she felt she deserved and wallows in the depths of despair or a marriage we cherished and cheered is headed for the marital cemetery.
When life takes a left turn, we no longer feel the benefits of being a child of God. We have slid from the mountaintop experience of life into the “valleys of the shadows of death.” (Psalms 23:4 NIV) When life goes left, we feel abandoned by God. Did we fall out of His favor? What happened to that supernatural element in our lives that showered us with innumerable blessings?
The blessed life has been replaced by the trials of Job, and we search for some measure of wisdom in the record he has provided. We search for a theology to provide some prospective on our present suffering. We look to Job as our mentor in misery--who does not disappoint. He opens up our understanding when he says, “. . . on the left hand where He doth work.” (Job 23:9 KJV).
On the left-hand side, God is just as much in attendance as He was when we enjoyed life on the other side of the street. But left-side work allows the Almighty to show the multiple dimensions of His Godhead. How can we appreciate Jehovah Rapha, God as healer, if we have never known sickness? How can we know God as Jehovah Jireh, if we never had to lean on Him to provide? How can we know God as comforter if we have never known sorrow?
Christians gain a broader understanding of who God is when we experience all of life. And when someone else goes through the vicissitudes of life, we can draw on our own experience so that we “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Cor 1:4 NIV) Yes, God summons us into the witness box, so that we can testify about how God has blessed us in the good times, and we can provide expert testimony about how He also has the power to “turn our sorrow into joy.” Alleluia
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Well done. Thanks!
God bless~
Great devotional!
Some very good points.
It was pretty predictable and maybe needed a little punch in the first paragraph, just to draw us in.
Your points were very valid and good.
Well done.
God bless
One nit-picky thing: The fourth paragraph beginning with, "Then the challenges come..." might do better broken up into two or three sentences. As it is, it's a 67 word sentence.
Overall great piece and splendid writing!
God bless~