Peace amid Pain - Protection by God (2)

The worst types of pain are the ones coming out of fear. Fear of something that did not happen and might not happen. You may live long years suffering and scared not of a problem in your life but afraid of anything bad that might happen in your life. It’s the fear of the future. That’s why the Lord Jesus said: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34), which means that there is evil and trouble everyday, and it means also that we cannot bear the evil of two days. Apostle Paul says also: “the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16), but we are encouraged from Psalm 27 as it says: “For in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me;” (Psalm 27:5) Yes there is an evil day but we are comforted in that day.

Dear reader, if you want to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, don’t think that evil will disappear from your life, but there is what can protect you from the bad times, it’s the Divine Protection. We are not forsaken in the world or to Satan so that they do to us what they want.

You may ask how, despite all that, there are still sufferings, sorrows and trials! Brother, trust in God and trust that nothing happens in our lives without His permission, for a purpose He has, and for our good at the end.

Remember that Satan, before touching Job, he has taken first the permission from the Lord. Also Satan before sifting Peter, he asked God’s permission: And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.” (Luke 22:31) I was expecting that God would say: “But I have asked that he doesn’t sift you”. Lord, how did you allow him to sift us?! The answer is: “But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail.” (Luke 22:32) What really encourages us the most amid the pains is that while we are like a seed inside the sieve; lifted up then falling down, flopping left and right is exactly what the Bible said: “But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail.” We will never fail.

Apostle Paul has truly said: “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). This man has passed in and tried pains as no one had before. How did Apostle Paul bear his sufferings?! It’s Persuasion. The first certainty: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38, 39) It’s the persuasion of Love and the New Birth.
As for the second certainty, it says: “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12). It’s the Divine protection.

Magdy Samuel