King Jesus, You didn’t promise that our days would be easier with less pain and less chaos once we believed. You told us through Paul that we must endure hardship as a good soldier for Your kingdom. Paul is our example of the pattern of longsuffering that believers face when we trust in Your promise of everlasting life. James tells us to count it all joy when trials come. Paul urges to look beyond the present affliction to the glory that is to come. I humbly come to Your mercy seat with a prayer to increase my perspective, and to see joy in the hard times, the hurting hours, the discouragement, because You are coming with Your recompense to believers when You set up Your kingdom.
I reach outside my small bubble of personal need to pray for my family, my church, my community, my state, my nation and all nations. Let Your Spirit hover over them all, calling Your beloved to repent and follow You, Jesus. I pray for masses of people to bow their knee and acknowledge You as Lord and Savior. I pray for revival and renewal in Your name and authority, according to the good and perfect will of the Father. Amen.
“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1: 12-17 NKJV)
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Joy S. Taylor is a follower of Christ, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Her workdays were spent using the Master of Science in Accounting degree that God graciously allowed at the age of, well, greater than 40. She led a divorce recovery support group sponsored by her church for seven years, and spent more than a decade in leadership roles for Celebrate Recovery, using what God had done in her life to point others to the healing only Jesus gives. Now retired, she concentrates on writing for Jesus from her beloved hickory grove in Indiana, yet devotes some of her time to volunteering for Care Net.