Ha, the first thing to come to mind is my ileostomy which they told me was temporary and now I’m having to convince the GI Surgeon to reverse it. Not so temporary if the surgeon won’t do his part 🙂
What else is temporary? Sufferings. They can feel like they are taking up your entire life and will NEVER end. But they do end. Sometimes by grace, God takes you out of the time of suffering and He always sustains you during the suffering. And sometimes by glory God takes you home. Neither is a bad ending!
I read a great blog post yesterday about the phrase “God never gives us more than we can handle” which is NOT biblical and nonsense. OF course God gives us more than we can handle. We are non-sufficient, people. We don’t bring a lot of strengths to the table, and we bring several trunks full of weaknesses to the table. He wants us to depend completely on Him and the only way He can get us to do that is to send us more than we can handle so we’ll turn to Him, finally!
Yes, trials and temptations He provides us strength to get out of. And suffering whether it’s financial, health and pain, relational, He sustains us. Turn to Him, rest in Him. (I feel like a broken record but it’s the best advice I have to give!) And sometimes even when you are still trying to do things on your own, God has mercy on you anyway and does it or gives you wisdom out of know where to handle something.
I was reading Genesis with the First5 App from Proverbs 31 Ministries and they were talking about how Esau rebelled against God , despised his birthright, married canaanite women, hated Jacob so much he wanted to kill him. Always impetuous and hasty and thoughtless. But God promised him a people and a land, and God provided that to Esau anyway. Even telling the returning Israelites that they couldn’t go up against Edom.
Sometimes God does that for us. We are in the midst of “I do myself” land and He steps in anyway and handles it way better than we were doing. And He provides hedges around us to keep us from going too far off the rails when we aren’t even aware. He is so faithful to His promises and He has promised that we are His and cannot wander away.Try thought we might 🙂
So, sufferings are temporary. God’s love and faithfulness are unchangeable and eternal!
