Today I read a beautiful and freeing quote from French writer Rev. Jacques Phillipe (someone recommended to me years ago by my wise counselor). He writes this:
“Yes, we know suffering and sorrow, but everything that happens serves to make us grow in love and in the fact of being God’s children. What happens and how others behave can no longer touch us negatively; they can only promote our true good, which is to love.”
What happens and how others behave can no longer touch us negatively; they can only promote our true good, which is to love.
Rev. Jacques Phillipe
I consider the truth that everything happening can promote love in my life. Every situation I’m in serves to grow me and remind me that I am God’s child.
I think, for example, of something that bothers me immensely: a sleepless night. I value sleep so much that it’s an idol. It’s something I have to surrender to the Lord to recognize His sovereignty and His right to wake me, to deprive me of sleep, and to do what He wants with my precious schedule. Traveling as a speaker means I rarely sleep well on weekends. But I carried Phillipe’s words with me and thought about what I’m learning and how I’m growing. This morning, I read in Psalm 54:4 David’s words: “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the One who sustains me.”
The Lord is the One who sustains me.
Not sleep, not the rights foods, not my exercise schedule. I surrender everything to God and know that He ultimately sustains me. I am His child in the deep of night. And I can pray for others, loving them and carrying them in my heart’s prayers, as I lie awake in strange beds in strange cities.
Everything happening to you and me promotes growth and love. Everything happening draws us to God.