October 23, 2022 | by Pastor Peter

Sometimes when we experience an unimaginable catastrophe, we’re really encountering God’s Mercy In Discipline. When things go well, we can lose touch with our dependence on God, and then God must use a challenging situation to bring us back to him. The Israelites encountered this sort of reversal when a swarm of locusts devoured their crops. The prophet Joel tells them that it is the work of God. The people need to come to God in repentance, and then God will gladly restore the years the locusts ate.

Or we might be like the Pharisee from Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. We may think we’re better than other people. In God’s discipline, he might show us that we’re actually less like the (self) righteous Pharisees and more like the obviously wicked tax-collector who receives mercy because he understands he has no standing before God, and can only appeal to God’s mercy.

In both cases, God may use our difficulties to strip us of the illusion of self-sufficiency so that we can rely on him.