even though there is very little that we know for sure about our lives and we experience constant surprises along the way, we need not give way to panic.

The difficulties we face in the here and now are not a sign that God has forgotten or abandoned us. He knows where he has placed us. He has placed us here because he is not after our ease; he is after our hearts.

But here's what you have to face. God, for your good and his glory, has chosen to keep you for a while in this broken-down world. He has chosen to employ the hardships of this world to complete the work that he has begun in you. He does not leave you alone. He does not leave you without resources. He blesses you with his new morning mercies. But he has you right where he wants you.

Their disappointed thinking had a fatal flaw in it. What they saw as being in the way of God's plan was actually part of his plan; what caused their faith to weaken was actually God's tool to build their faith.

God is using the difficulties of the here and now to transform you, that is, to rescue you from you. And because he loves you, he will willingly interrupt or compromise your momentary happiness in order to accomplish one more step in the process of rescue and transformation, which he is unshakably committed to.

Suffering is an evil that an all-wise, all-righteous, and all-loving God uses for eternal good.

As you struggle, you must not view your marriage as bad luck, or poor planning, or as a mess that you made for yourself. No, God is right smack-dab in the middle of your struggle. He is not surprised by what you are facing today. He is up to something.

Often failure is the workroom God uses in our lives to reform us to be what we need to be in order to be more successful tools in his hands.

Everything we say and do, everything we commit ourselves to, and every situation, location, and relationship we experience is experienced between the already and the not yet. You will never understand the things you face every day until you understand that you live in the middle. Everything in your life is shaped by what the middle is like.

Suffering makes us susceptible to the one voice we should never hear and that will always do us harm.

What is God doing in the here and now? He is employing the difficulties of life as tools of grace to produce character in you that would not grow any other way.

The central lie of Satan to all God's suffering children comes in the form of this question: "Where is your God now?" The lie embedded in this question is that our suffering is clear evidence that we have been forsaken by God.