Who says that life is like a beau­ti­ful “bed of ros­es?”

Even the ros­es in be­tween have their thorns, and if you are not care­ful, you can be hurt. Along life’s path­way, there will be ups and downs; not every day will the sun shine. There will be those bleak and rainy days. The best of us do go through sit­u­a­tions in life that we wish had nev­er tak­en place. For ex­am­ple, the loss of a loved one, a bro­ken re­la­tion­ship, an ail­ment with­out a warn­ing, or a cri­sis at our job, and this list can go on.

Wel­come, my friend, to the re­al world!

The scrip­ture tells us, “Many are the af­flic­tions of the right­eous, but the Lord de­liv­ers him out of them all.” (Psalm 34:19). That word “af­flic­tions” in the con­text of the scrip­ture means suf­fer­ing, a state of pain, dis­tress, grief, or mis­ery; a cause of men­tal or bod­i­ly pain, such as sick­ness, loss, calami­ty, or per­se­cu­tion. When you look at the bib­li­cal trans­la­tion, I be­lieve that along life’s jour­ney, all of us may have had one or two of those ex­pe­ri­ences. I am the first to put up my hand and say I can iden­ti­fy with this. What al­so caught my at­ten­tion is that the verse al­so said, “But the Lord de­liv­ereth him out of them.” Now that is good news for me. De­spite what­ev­er your sit­u­a­tion is to­day, there is hope in God.

The prophet Isa­iah wrote in Isa­iah 41:10: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dis­mayed; for I am thy God: I will strength­en thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will up­hold thee with the right hand of my right­eous­ness.” I want you to make that per­son­al. God is speak­ing to you, en­cour­ag­ing you not to al­low fear to take over you as you face that sit­u­a­tion in your life, but to have con­fi­dence in him to strength­en you, up­hold you, and en­sure your safe­ty.

What­ev­er neg­a­tive or dis­turb­ing re­port you may have re­ceived, I want you to un­der­stand that you do not have to go through the trau­ma all by your­self. There is a God who cares about you in every as­pect of your life. Je­sus said in Matthew 11:28 & 29: “Come un­to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke up­on you, and learn of me; for I am meek and low­ly in heart, and ye shall find rest un­to your souls”. This is an in­vi­ta­tion giv­en to all, and it does not mat­ter what your sit­u­a­tion may be; the call is all-in­clu­sive, for that is the depth of God’s love be­ing ex­hib­it­ed.

I would like you to al­so per­son­alise this por­tion of scrip­ture; it is Isa­iah 43:2&3: “When thou pass­est through the wa­ters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not over­flow thee: when thou walk­est through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; nei­ther shall the flame kin­dle up­on thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Is­rael, thy Sav­iour: I gave Egypt for thy ran­som, Ethiopia and Se­ba for thee.”

My per­son­al in­ter­pre­ta­tion of this is that what­ev­er is thrown at you, you can rest as­sured that the God who cre­at­ed heav­en and the earth will be there with you. Man, for var­i­ous rea­sons, may desert you in times of trou­ble, but not God, my friend; you can count on Him. In all of this, what is vi­tal is that you have a re­la­tion­ship with God. Je­sus said in John 15:7: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done un­to you.

I ex­hort you, do not give up but trust God and see that sit­u­a­tion turn around.

God’s bless­ing al­ways.