Day 2

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

—ROMANS 8:28

I spent the last decade in a fog—wandering in a spiritual desert. Circumstances during that decade crushed me and I went into hiding for a very long time. I know that I am not alone and that many of you can relate to the feeling of being crushed by the weight of the things that this life has thrown your way. We can’t live in this broken world very long before we are, in some way, broken by it.

What do we do when life takes us out at the knees and we lay there with no energy to get back up? And what do we do when we get up and find that we can still walk, but that now we walk with a limp? What do we do then?

Looking back on my desert experience I know that it was a desert of my own making AND it was a desert that God was using to refine me. God can use anything for his good, even years that seem dry and wasted.

In writing these devotions, I am asking God to give me his divine insight into my desert experience so that I can offer you some help on your own. And so I invite you along as I process what God has shown me since I have come out the other side of a very difficult decade, believing that both of us will be changed. I believe that we will discover truths together as God speaks, as I write, and as you read and reflect on how the words apply to your own life. I also believe that these truths that we discover together will lead us both to a new freedom.

So let’s put behind us the regrets of wasted years and lost opportunities. Let’s put behind us the wounds of yesterday. Let’s remember what we may have forgotten: that God is a God of today. That He still, and always, has a future and a plan for us. That it is NEVER too late.

The time of floundering is over. God is calling us to move forward as a people. He wants us to rise up from the misty lowlands so that He can begin a new work of love within us.

P R A Y E R : “Speak, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10)

Let this be our prayer every day as we seek to know God better and to live out His purpose every day.