Do Your Worst
Psalm 50
My wife died a couple years past now. While it was a difficult time there are many factors for her sake we could say a reluctant goodbye. There were inexplicable changes that took place after her death one of which was an illness I had for 29 years, chronically disabling the last 7 1/2 of those years ended just before she died. No explanation, just a miracle and blessing from God. During the first year of grieving at a grief group I met others rendered to the depths of their hearts I wondered if they could ever recover. Even of my own children their grief is widely varied.
As I considered these things I pondered those in the Bible who passed through great grief. Adam and Eve as their oldest child murdered their second oldest. Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives, not one of Noah's brothers or sisters, nieces or nephews, aunts and uncles came especially during the final seven days before God shut the door of the ark. Then Abram leaving Ur of the Chaldees with his father and his brother's son Lot (Abram's brother died), living awhile in a city named after Abram's brother) where his father died to go to a land God would show him. Later, now Abraham, having to send away his son his wife had encouraged Abraham to have with the servant woman, to send both his son and his son's mother away. But then the heartbreak of Isaac and Rebekah of the hostility between their twin sons, Joseph hated and thought to be dead for twenty-two years, Aaron loosing two of his four priest sons because they stood up against Moses, Mephiboseth loosing his grandfather, father, and uncle the same day in battle and still fearing for his own life, Naaman's servant girl taken from, most likely, a murdered family, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah taken from their families in Judah along with a couple thousand other Israelite teenagers, and so many more who suffered greatly of personal loss, death and tragedy in their families. Some may say it's a cruel way for God to work out His plans forgetting completely it's the sin and iniquity in man with provides the framework with which God has to work. God remained true to good, right, and His promises in spite of man's corruption and beyond man's corruption.
Hear, O my people, and I will speak: hear, O Israel, and I will testify unto thee: for I am God, even thy God.
Offer unto God praise, and pay thy vows unto the most High, And call upon me in the day of trouble: so will I deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Psalms 50:7, 14 - 15 GNV
No matter the hardship that came upon man due to the corruptness of man. Noah, a hundred years building an ark because of the corruption of man, all who followed God were saved, all eight among hundreds of thousands. Joseph to Egypt due to the corruptness of his brothers told them many years later that of his slavery and prison that God meant it unto good to save nations alive. God led two million to a wide sea to save them alive and defeat their enemies. From the loss of their son Abel to the birth of their son Seth forward to the birth of Jesus Christ who was obedient unto the death even death on the cross because the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, as bitter as it can be there are awful things God sees happen in our lives and like at the time of Noah, or as Moses lifted up tge serpent in the wilderness that whosoever will may come. To be reiterated "call upon me in the day of trouble: so I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me". Like Joseph in prison, Naaman's little servant girl, or Daniel captive in Babylon for 70 years seeing the end result, the purpose is that God may be glorified.
May we recognize our purpose, something I struggle with often, even as Jesus Christ recognized His purpose. Jesus certainly prayed for God's glory.
And this is life eternal, that they know thee to be the only very God, and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now glorify me, thou Father, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
John 17:3 - 5 GNV