Daily EncouragementSample

So it seemed to Jacob, and so it has seemed to many a discouraged child of God since. What leads to such an exclamation, reflecting, as it does, a highly pessimistic attitude and a feeling that this is the end? It is often due to a limited knowledge of the facts. “Joseph is no more!” cried Jacob, an assumption which we know to be untrue. His type of attitude is also due to a forgetfulness of the past. “God has been gracious to me,” was Jacob’s testimony to Esau (Gen. 33:11), but that truth was forgotten in the hour of despair. Jacob’s attitude is accelerated by ignorance of the future. If he could have seen what lay ahead, no such words would have crossed his lips. So the root cause emerges, and it is unbelief in the providence of God. To trust that providence is to declare with Paul, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It is to ask with the same apostle, “If God is for us who can be against us?” It is to share his conviction that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:28,31,37).