Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

God Uses Our Suffering to Produce Steadfastness {No Matter What Monday}

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james 1-2-4

Quick, answer this question: what’s 3 times 8?

As a parent, there are three major hurdles I’ve jumped with my kids: potty training, learning to read, and memorizing multiplication tables. All three of my kids have conquered the first two skills. My youngest is about to start her times tables. I expect she’ll finish learning them in time for me to have a quick celebration . . . before it dawns on me that none of them know how to drive. (Yikes.)

As an adult, we take it for granted that we know our multiplication tables. But as an 8-year-old staring at the giant table of 144 numbers to learn, it seems overwhelming. Yes, there will probably be tears. For both of us. But the hours of drilling and repeating and chanting out loud, “3 times 1 is 3. 3 times 2 is 6. 3 times 3 is 9 . . .” will eventually result in my daughter instinctively knowing the answer to 3 times 8.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

In today’s passage, James is reminding his readers that God has a purpose in their suffering. The testing of their faith will produce steadfastness, and steadfastness will lead to spiritual maturity. James says we should count it all joy when our trials produce these traits in us.

Steadfastness and spiritual maturity may feel about as exciting to you as learning multiplication tables. But from the Lord’s perspective, our steadfastness is beautiful. Just as my daughter’s time memorizing math facts will not be wasted, your suffering will not be wasted. It will produce God’s desired effect: the growth of your faith and character, your perseverance in hope, and your full equipping for the next task God has for you. And from an eternal viewpoint, that’s a great reason to rejoice!

No matter what you face this week, God will use your suffering to produce steadfastness.

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God Has Prepared You For This {No Matter What Monday}

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god-has-prepared-you-for-this

A couple months ago, I stared out the window of my home office, sipping coffee and enjoying the early morning quiet of a house filled with my sleeping people. The silence was broken by a sound I interpreted at first to be my children jumping up and down upstairs. But the way the house was shaking, there must have been twenty kids jumping, and that couldn’t be right. The waves of realization came slowly across my slightly-caffeinated brain: an earthquake.

I had no idea where I should be or what I should do. I live in Arkansas, not California! Was I supposed to bring everyone downstairs to a bathroom, like in a tornado? Get everyone out of the house like in a fire? Get under a desk or into a doorway? Thankfully, the earthquake ended by the time I gathered my confused, bleary-eyed family, and we were fine.

After we settled down, I was struck by how unprepared I was for the earthquake. When the unexpected happens, we often find ourselves unprepared. We feel scared, confused, even frantic. Life is happening, and we need to act or respond, but we have no clue what to do.

Ephesians 2:10 promises us that God has equipped us for all that He calls us to do: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We are His workmanship. He has good works for us to do, which He has prepared beforehand. Fueled by the Holy Spirit, we can walk freely in the work He asks us to do.

If you’re anxious about the tasks your week will bring, you can be sure of this: God has equipped you in every way to tackle the to-do list He’s given you.

Whatever you face this week, God has prepared you for this, because you are His workmanship.

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The Lord Will Fulfill His Purposes for You {No Matter What Monday}

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psalm-138-8

Am I the only mom who hates Chutes and Ladders? It’s the board game that never ends! You finally get your cardboard kid up to the 80s or 90s, and then you hit that giant chute back to the bottom. You might get lucky and hit a ladder or two along the way. But those chutes are enough to make me crazy. It feels like there will never be a winner.

Do you ever feel that way about the Christian life? You start to make some progress exercising self-control over your thoughts or your actions, but then you mess up. You practice kindness and gentleness with your children for a couple of days, but it doesn’t last and your temper erupts. You dig into God’s Word or sit with Him in prayer for a few mornings in a row and then go back to hitting the snooze button.

Little ladders up, giant chutes down.

Psalm 138:8: The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Today’s Scripture brings comfort to our chute-like moments. The Lord will fulfill His purpose for you. Yes, there will be ups and downs. There will be mistakes with consequences. There will be successes that seem short-lived. But because of the Lord’s steadfast love for you, He will not forsake the work of His hands. And you are the work of His hands.

Each and every one of His purposes for you will be fulfilled. He can even bring purpose to us as we sit on our bottoms at the end of a chute. Even there, His grace will find us.

No matter what you face this week, the Lord will fulfill His purposes for you.

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God Will Complete the Good Work {No Matter What Monday}

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phil 1.6

Do you ever wonder what in the world God is doing? I do.

I wonder what He’s doing in our world, in our country, and in the lives of those around me.

And I often wonder what He’s doing with me. I wonder what He’s doing in me.

Philippians 1:6 gives insight into those questions: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Other Scriptures say it this way:

“I cry out to the God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me” (Psalm 57:2).

“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands” (Psalm 138:8).

“[God] who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (I Thessalonians 5:24).

God began a good work in me when He redeemed me by His grace and sent His Spirit to live in me. And this good work will be finished someday, because the Lord who is faithful will surely do it! 

I love this quote about how God uses our suffering to complete His good work in us:

“God is faithful; he will use the brokenness of the world that is your present address to complete the loving work of personal transformation that he has begun” (Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, March 8 devotional).

When I feel discouraged by the sin that runs rampant in this world and the sin that runs rampant in my own heart, I can take comfort in knowing that the Lord will fulfill all His purposes for me.

No matter what, you can trust your faithful God to complete the loving work of transformation He has begun in you.

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