Thoughts of Grace

Happy 47th Anniversary to us.

Good Afternoon,

Genesis 41:50-52
50 And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him.

51 And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh:
For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.

52 And the name of the second called he Ephraim:
For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.

. . . Perchance some of God’s children are even now saying,
“O God, it is raining hard for me tonight.”

“Testings are raining upon me
which seem beyond my power to endure.
Disappointments are raining fast,
to the utter defeat of my plans.
Bereavements are raining into mu life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering.
The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days.”

With, friend, you are mistaken.
It isn’t raining rain for you.
It’s raining blessing.
For, if you will but believe your Father’s Word,
under that beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours.

You indeed see the rain.
But do you see also the flowers?
You are pained by the testings.
but God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.

You shrink from the suffering.
But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.

Your heart winces under the sore bereavement.
But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.

It isn’t raining afflictions for you.
It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beet in your innermost soul. –J. M. McC.

In everything give thanks . . . Today
With my prayers, desiring yours, Leslie