Comfort in Affliction, Affliction in Comfort

All week we’ve been thinking about how to live out both grace and truth, care and challenge. The best way to do that is to “Imitate God” (Ephesians 5:1) who is the master. Let this poem remind you of how God does this in your life…

God says:

I am covenanted,
committed forever to love you;
to do whatever is best for you.

I will be kind, encouraging and
enabling, but I will also be challenging.
At times I will come to comfort you
in your affliction. At other times,
I will come to afflict you in your comfort…

Whatever I do, it will always be
an act of love and
an invitation to growth.

I will be with you
to illuminate your darkness,
to strengthen your weakness,
to fill your emptiness,
to heal your brokenness,
to cure your sickness,
to straighten what may be bent in you,
and to revive whatever good things may have died in you.

Remain united to me, accept my love,
enjoy the warmth of my friendship,
avail yourself of my power,
and you will bear much fruit.
You will have life in all its fullness.

• John Powell, Fully Human, Fully Alive