Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."¹

Many years ago I snapped an Achilles tendon and was only out of the cast a few weeks when I snapped it again! I was not a happy camper. Altogether I was hobbling around on crutches for much of a six-month period.

Other things were a lot worse at the same time and for quite a while I felt like God had forgotten me.

Times like these have been called "the dark night of the soul." Most of us go through such periods. Sometimes it's just life's circumstances that get us down such as having an accident, getting sick, being betrayed by a friend, or experiencing the loss of a loved one or a job, or because of an unresolved relational conflict. And sometimes we have no idea why we feel so down.

Whatever the reason, the difficulties we are experiencing may be God's wake-up call for us to put something right in our life, to help us grow, or to motivate us to get into a recovery or counseling program to overcome a depression that has lasted too long or to help us overcome an addiction—or even motivate us to change the direction of our life.

If you are going through "a dark night of the soul" be assured that God wants to use this time to help you grow and become a better and wiser person or to change some direction in your life. For me personally, I don't think I have ever made a major change in my life or work without it having been preceded by a "dark night of the soul" period. I mean, who wants to change anything when everything is going great? Not me! The "dark night" times leave me open to change and to God's direction.

However, no matter what we are going through, if our lives are committed to God, of one thing we can be certain, "The eternal God is our refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms."

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, in any dark night of my soul and anguish of heart, please help me to learn what you are seeking to teach me, to hear what you are saying to me, and/or to know what you want me to do. And give me the good sense and courage to follow your bidding. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Deuteronomy 33:27 (NIV).

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