By David ReayMonday 12 Feb 2018LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 2 minutes
Read 2 Corinthians 11:27-29
27 I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (NIV)
We live in a world where we are faced with many problems that are beyond fixing. Not even the great and powerful can feed all the hungry, clean up all corruption, force people to care for others above themselves.
And more disturbingly, it doesn’t seem as if God can do that either. For many of us, it is increasingly apparent that God does not often step in and simply solve such problems. We might wish he would and we are thankful that sometimes he does just that. But more often he doesn’t eliminate pain or suffering or injustice. He comes alongside those who endure these things and holds them tight. It seems he doesn’t intend to explain suffering but to fill it with his presence.
Perhaps he invites us to do likewise. Instead of posing as fixers who have all the solutions, we come as companions who absorb something of the patient compassion of God. We then don’t have to see ourselves as problem-solvers but as true lovers.
In our broken world, miracles of healing and justice do not always occur. And so we are called to share something of our own broken-heartedness with others on the way. We join the company of Jesus, Paul, and many others who experienced the pain of living in a world not yet whole.
One day, praise God, it will all be fixed. But that day is not yet.
Blessings
David Reay