(…continued) Once you start looking, you will see that little word ‘but’ all over the place in the Bible. It is a good word to remember in all of life. As a person of faith, you will always want to keep putting the BUT in your story. “Things are not going very well for me right now, BUT I know God is with me.” “Much of what is going on in my life doesn’t seem to make much sense or have much purpose, BUT I know that God has promised to work out all things for my good.” “I am having a bad day/week/year, BUT God has given me so many good days/weeks/years.” “This is a painful time in my life, BUT the Bible says God can teach me and help me to grow in our faith through the painful trials I must endure.” “I’m not yet what I want to be, and I know I’m not yet what God wants me to be, BUT I do know God has forgiven and is working within me.” “I’ve been so ill for such a long time, and I’m getting sick and tired of being sick and tired, BUT I know that God can heal me if that be His will.” Or perhaps, “The doctor just told me there is nothing more they can do for me, BUT God has already given me 61 good years, and I know that even when this life ends, I will go to live with the Lord in a far better home.” By faith, we have to keep remembering to keep these ‘BUTS’ in our story. Faith prays, and faith hopes, but then faith is always able to adjust and go deeper. God always has another promise. God always gets the last word. (continued…)
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When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.
–Mother Teresa
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Genesis 50:19-20 — But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
John 9:25b — “…One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
II Corinthians 4:16-18 — Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
II Corinthians 1:8-10 — We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.
2 Corinthians 4:6-9 — For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Hebrews 11:13-16 — These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
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“Lead us not into temptation, BUT deliver us from evil.”
–Jesus, Matthew 6:13
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