Well, here we are in September and COVID-19 is still overshadowing our lives. Most of us, by now, either know someone who has had COVID or, maybe sadly, even passed away from the illness. Our lives are still not the "normal" we once knew and, most likely, it never will be what we once knew. But one thing is certain that has not changed - JESUS. He has told us He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Because Jesus has not changed, that gives us courage for the uncertainty of the days ahead.
So many months of being in "lock-down", rearranging our lifestyles, and adjusting to what we cannot do can become wearisome and draining. But there is a way to stay on the positive side of the restrictions: speak faith and hope. Read the devotional below by E.G. White from This Day With God about how keeping the faith glorifies God during trying times.
Chap. 208 - According to Your Faith
Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. Matthew 9:29. {TDG 216.1}
It is our duty, as children of God, to talk faith, and not doubt. We are to
be hopeful and cheerful in the Lord. Let us not look on the dark side of
circumstances, but look up, and believe in the One whom God gave to the
world to save us from our sins. Christ accomplishes our salvation by
inspiring faith in our hearts and a belief in the truth. The truth makes free;
and those whom the Son makes free are free indeed. Let us seek to honor
God by revealing a constantly increasing confidence in the assurance that
He will accept every soul who serves Him in sincerity. {TDG 216.2}
We are the Lord's little children, and we are to be led and upheld by
Him. If we will learn lessons from the kindness and patience and
tenderness of Jesus, we will be a blessing to all with whom we are
associated. The Lord would have us take comfort in His promises, and
praise Him much more than we do. "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me"
(Psalm 50:23). Let us learn how to express our gratitude to God for His
wonderful condescension and love for mankind. {TDG 216.3}
The only begotten Son of God consented to leave the heavenly courts
and come to our world to live with an ungrateful people who refused His
gracious mercies. He consented to live a life of poverty, and to endure
suffering and temptation. He became a Man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief. And the Word declares, "We hid as it were our faces from him" (Isaiah
53:3). Of His own disciples, Peter, denied Him, and Judas betrayed Him.
The people whom He came to bless rejected Him. They put Him to shame
and caused Him untold suffering. They placed upon His head a crown of
thorns that pierced His holy temples. They beat Him with a scourge, and
then they nailed Him to the cross. Yet amid it all, no word of complaint
escaped His lips. . . . {TDG 216.4}
Christ bore all this suffering in order to obtain the right to confer eternal
righteousness upon as many as would believe on Him. O, when I think of
this, I feel that no complaint should ever escape my lips. . . . {TDG 216.5}
When we are having a hard time, let us consider how much our salvation cost the God of the universe.--Letter 232, July 26, 1908, to Brother and Sister M. Hare, workers in the Southern States. {TDG 216.6; emphasis added}
