Morning Devotional

Morning Devotional
January 30, 2003
“Opportunities For Joy"

by Don Emmitte


Home

Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything. If you need wisdom, if you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. They can't make up their minds. They waver back and forth in everything they do. Christians who are poor should be glad, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should be glad, for God has humbled them. They will fade away like a flower in the field. The hot sun rises and dries up the grass; the flower withers, and its beauty fades away. So also, wealthy people will fade away with all of their achievements. (James 1:2-11 NLV).

One day a lady pulled into a self-serve gas station to fill up her car. She got out of her car, hurried over to the pump, lifted the nozzle to her gas tank, and tried to pump the gas. Nothing happened. Belatedly she realized that this was one of those gas stations where you had to prepay. Frustrated and in a hurry, she ran inside, paid the cashier, and returned to her car to resume pumping her gas. She squeezed the handle, but still nothing happened. "What kind of lousy gas station is this?" she mumbled angrily to herself. After trying again with no better results, she ran back in to the cashier and started giving him a piece of her mind. With a concerned look on his face, the cashier talked right over the top of the lady's scolding. "Ma'am, please stay right here. Don't go back to your car. I just called 911. When you were leaving the building after paying me, I saw a man get into the back seat of your car. It looked to me like he didn't belong there. The only way I could get you to come back inside was to turn off your gas pump."
Just then the police pulled up and took into custody the man who was hiding in the woman's car. The woman learned later that he was trying to get initiated into a very dangerous gang. Armed with a knife, he had planned to kill her and steal her car once they left the gas station. ¹

Sometimes it’s easy to feel resentful and frustrated about a disappointment, a failure, a loss, or a serious setback of some kind. No one likes it when life doesn't go as smoothly as they'd like. At those moments consider that God may be trying to get your attention, to slow you down so that you may hear his voice. Perhaps due to our frantic pace, we don't notice sin creeping into the back seat of our lives, putting us at great risk. Thank God that he's always on the lookout for us, and that at times he uses setbacks to rescue us from danger. The trying times are really opportunities for joy!