Philippians 2:1-4... 14-18 - by Don Neuendorf
DON'T MISS the CPH book sale over at Concordia. It's Friday and Saturday of this week, down in the Riverside Room beneath the student union. I just came from there with $40 worth of books, 14 regular books and 3 books of organ music. Worth going to.
Hey, I just thought you'd like to know.
Now to Philippians. It's funny how much can be packed into a few words, like when Paul says "what happened to me..." Wow, what a LOT of stuff happened to him. Riots, beatings, stoned and left for dead, pursued, hunted, escaped in a basket over the wall, arrested, jailed, on trial before Ceasar. Wow!
Occasionally I'll talk to a member who has a similar history...
Accidents, illnesses, surgeries, setbacks, miraculous deliveries, financial disasters, family crises, sometimes all these things seem to happen to one person. The neatest thing is that, in most of these cases, the person telling me this crazy history is doing so because they have seen God's hand in all of them.
They praise God for his deliverance - but not only for sparing them from worse harm. They praise God for all that they have learned, how they have changed, and how other lives have been touched through their circumstances.
Sadly, I also talk to many people, even people with much smaller or fewer problems, who see any trouble as evidence of God's injustice. "God has let me down." Somehow they fail to see what God desired in these things, and so the Lord is less able to use their circumstance to his glory.
What is your tragedy today? (Isn't there at least one every day?) Is it possible that even in this God could be praised? Why not give it to him, and ask him to use it?
Then go catch that book sale!