Devotionals

Scripture Reading: Matthew 11:7

If you haven't read the last two weeks under the devotional section, you may want to read them before reading today's devotional to catch up.

During those years of wilderness living I was injured on my job. Stretching things more than I should have, I managed to injure my back pretty severely, but I did not pursue any type of compensation for the accident. I had been raised to understand that the Bible taught strickly against lawsuits, so I continued working in spite of severe back pain. Soon I began to experience paralysis and muscle spasms throughout my back, arms, and legs. The severity of these symptoms caused me to miss work for weeks at a time. Tests later showed that I had permanent disc, nerve, and muscle damage.  

I was forced to change jobs and my income decreased drastically. On top of this, my determination to survive in life was slowly diminishing. I lived in excruciating pain everyday. The financial strain from my loss of work while trying to raise a child became more than I could bear. At the age of twenty-one, I had become very fragile mentally, physically, and emotionally. I felt like I was trapped in a dark hole with no way out.  

In a world so full of people, I felt all alone. And the harder I fought to survive, the weaker I grew. I lay in bed at night and cried myself to sleep. I became depressed and lost an extreme amount of weight. Life had become nothing more than worry, stress, and fear. I believe now that the only thing that kept me going was my precious baby boy.

As the treasured days of Labron’s first year of life were drawing to a close, I began searching for some kind of inner peace. Looking around, I had come to the realization that I had made a complete mess of my life. I had been trying to cover the guilt and shame of immature decisions with a temporary fix of material goods and good times that I had mistaken for true happiness. Now I was starting to reap exactly what I had sown: the whirlwind. I had sown to the flesh, and I was reaping the bad harvest in my own aching flesh.  

My search for peace brought many of my mother’s words back to my thoughts. Certain phrases that she’d used rang out constantly with particular poignancy to my now-listening ears. “You can’t do anything without God,” mother would say. “Could she possibly have been right?” I wondered. In my arrogance, it seemed impossible that that corny old phrase could hold the key to all truth for me. Yet every time I tried to make sense out of my life or find peace in my circumstance the words “without God” would come to my remembrance.  

And oh yes, I tried very vigorously to justify my lifestyle by telling myself that I was not such a bad person. There were lots of people doing worse things than I was! What about all those people who had committed murder or who’d had abortions? I hadn’t done anything that bad.  The worst thing I was guilty of was having a drink every now and then, but I had seen enough of the effects of alcohol in my father’s life to avoid excesses in that area. I had always feared drugs and sex, so I’d stayed away from people involved in those activities.  

In my eyes, I was OK. God didn’t see me that way. In His eyes, sin is sin. There are no big sins and little sins, and He found me as guilty as the murderer, the abortionist, the drunk, and the prostitute. This “argument with God” about my supposed righteousness lasted for quite some time. Then somehow (whether through The Word, a message heard from the pulpit or in a still, small Voice that spoke to me within), my vain attempts to justify my lifestyle brought me face to face with the truth. I found true peace in God’s truth, and my search ended in Him.  

At last, though I had so long forgotten, it was becoming quite clear that God had been working in my life all along. Why, as a young child I had received Him as my Savior.

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• Tags: income, stress, worldly

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• Posted by: Dr. Brenda Robinson