Daily Bible Readings

---

23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.  

7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

“Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4) It seems a strange thing to say that those who suffer are blessed. Every instinct within our human selves rises in disbelief and confusion. It seems illogical and contradictory. How can anyone who has lost something or someone much loved be blessed? Is that not a misfortune or a curse? Yet, God declares that people who believe God are privileged in the midst of every sad and painful circumstance. How can that be? 

Change Is not something most of us eagerly anticipate, especially if it is not our plan.  Grief brings about abrupt change.  What was comfortable and familiar yesterday becomes horrifying and different today.   Life can be re-categorized—there is BC (before change) and AD (after death or loss). 

When we grieve the loss of something dear to us our faith is often tested.  We are told in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13) of four areas where seeds fell and subsequently grew.  Three areas could not sustain the plants that sprung up—only one could.  Going through grief can reveal our spiritual soil type.  God made soil to be a natural medium for the growth of plants and we are the God-designed medium through which faith is cultivated.  

We might not think that grieving would be an appropriate word to use for the Israelites after they left Egypt. They had been in the land for many years and it had been welcoming and a prosperous time.  But under a new Pharaoh life changed drastically. The bible tells us that the Egyptian masters worked the Israelites “ruthlessly” (Exod. 1:13, 14) and made their lives “bitter” (Exod. 1:14) with “hard/cruel” (Exod. 1:14; 6:9) service. As a result, Israel languished in “misery” and “suffering” (Exod. 3:7).