Daily Devotional
Growing In Times Of Despair, Part 2

March 22, 2017

God is not nearly as interested in making you happy and healthy as He is in making you holy. Knowing that, you will then understand that sometimes God will bring trouble into your life. Psalm 4:1 says, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer” (emphasis mine).

I have grown the most in my own life in times of deepest despair. When Joyce and I had a little baby boy step over into heaven, we grew a quantum leap. When I had a daughter go through a deep heartache and distress, God stretched my heart. I never want these things to happen again, but they did happen. And I’m here to tell you that I am a better person because of it.

The following poem titled “Along The Road” by Robert Browning Hamilton shares my sentiments:

I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne'er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!