"The Present of the Present" Part 2

" I see, Daddy. The present is a present."

In our current existence, we need tears as well as smiles, sorrows along with joys, and challenges no less than pleasures.

"Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept Thy Word" (Psalm 119:167).

Thankfully, a day approaches for born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ wherein "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4). But this is not that day. Apart from Divinely determined, allowed and measured hardships, we would not at present be able to consistently trust and obey our Lord. Our flesh is far too prone to trust that the things of the world provide life, meaning and fulfillment. Pain, sorrow and loss reveal the deception of such deadly delusion, as in the valleys of life God lovingly reveals aspects of Himself no summit could ever provide. "Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, o Lord!" (Psalm 130:1).

Thus, the heartaching and heartbreaking moments of our current existence must be viewed as the gifts of God no less than the happy times our Heavenly Father loves to bestow upon us. Thankfully, He is not a sentimentalist who deviates from our best interests in order to placate our flesh. God always determines and allows that which most promotes our growth in the grace of the Lord Jesus, and our capacity to minister the same unto others. Of his challenges, the Apostle Paul declared to the Corinthians, "But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel" (Philippians 1:12). The same is true in our lives, and we must choose to embrace Paul's attitude of confidence that God's good purposes grace our sorrows no less than our joys.

This is hard truth. But it is truth, as even a cursory reading of both Old Testament and New reveals. As with the Psalmist, apart from afflictions, we will go astray. By them we keep the Word of God - if we understand and respond in faith to the truth the present moment, in all its forms and expressions, comes to us a a present, a gift from the God loving enough, wise enough and powerful enough to fit all things together for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Long ago, a child, my own dear child, served to illuminate this path that shines brightly in our times of light, and in our times of darkness...

"In Thy light shall we see light... the light shineth in darkness."

(Psalm 36:9; John 1:5)