Victory In, Through, and Because of, the Agonies of Life

Juxtaposing the tyrannising mode of life with the love and victory of God in Christ is entirely necessary for hope. Here is a prayer and a commentary of the prayer to this end:

Oh my Lord God,

You have irrevocably touched my soul,

So I am all Yours, all ways, always!

You have shown me my role,

My privilege to love You all my days!

Though life in this world destroys all hope,

You are the Restorer of all Good Things,

You are my Wholly Good Power to cope,

So I surrender to You, with all that that brings.

You are the One and Only,

And You turn bad things around,

Making full and loved, the lonely,

When it’s in Your love that they’re found.

You’ve done so veritably much,

To woo and win my all,

The fullness of grace in Your clutch,

Means I can never rescind Your call.

Despite the recency of pain,

Are those Very Good Gifts that You give,

So I may count every loss its own gain,

And say, “It’s only in Christ that I live!”

God is such that every bad thing is for Him to restore, and, with that hope, every bad thing (and the worse they are the better) makes our love for Him ever more acute. Nothing can conquer us!

As I surrender my all to the One and Only, He turns things around and I sense victory from the starkest defeat.

The prince of this world would seek to knock us over, but in Christ being knocked over is the very necessary beginning for the ignition of His power. Can you not see that Satan cannot win?

Satan may have thought that recent events would render our faith rocked and rolled, but these circumstances, and every bad circumstance, we use to look peaceably at life — notwithstanding the shrill depths of anguish — because Jesus has overcome!

Oh what pleasure is a life that is imagined with God in our corner.

This world will overcome us, but, Jesus has overcome this world. Our defeat is very necessary in order to draw on the victory of Christ, through God the Father.

His Spirit be with you...

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It needs to be said — as a means of ardent due process — that some situations of pain need never be tolerated. Let Christ’s Spirit lead the one who is in a situation of abuse out of that situation — for it cannot be, in all good conscience, tolerated.

But, for some, the ‘abuses’ of this world are beyond us; they are in the very hand of God. Lest we forget: He has already overcome for us!

Remain hopeful for a brand new day!

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.