When God speaks...You know it!

I don't know about you, but it's been a tough week. At times I've felt overwhelmed, frustrated, somewhat hopeless, depressed, beaten up, chewed up and spit out. The other morning, I was fumbling through my Bible hoping to find some cure for my blues.

Honestly, I wasn't really expecting I would find anything. Oh we've all heard people say, "You won't believe this - I was down in the dumps but this morning my Bible just happened to open to this verse and God spoke directly to me". Well, that rarely happens to me. In fact, my Bible would probably fall open to one of the Old Testament books like Numbers 26:48-50 which says, "The descendants of Naphtali by their clans were: through Jahzeel, the Jahzeelite clan; through Guni, the Gunite clan; through Jezer, the Jezerite clan; through Shillem, the Shillemite clan. These were the clans of Naphtali; those numbered were 45,400". What do you do with that?!

Well, I have to say that it actually happened. On Wednesday morning my Bible just happened to open to 2 Corinthians 6:3-10. This is where Paul is talking about his hardships as a minister of the Gospel.

Here is what it says: "We try to live in such a way that no one will be hindered from finding the Lord by the way we act, and so no one can find fault with our ministry. In everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. We have been beaten, been put in jail, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food. We have proved ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, our sincere love, and the power of the Holy Spirit. We have faithfully preached the truth. God's power has been working in us. We have righteousness as our weapon, both to attack and to defend ourselves. We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors. We are well known, but we are treated as unknown. We live close to death, but here we are, still alive. We have been beaten within an inch of our lives. Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything".

That was exactly what I needed at that very moment. God is good all the time!