Bad things do happen to good people in this world, but it is not God who wills it. God would like people to get what they deserve in life, but He cannot always arrange it. Forced to choose between a good God who is not totally powerful, or a powerful God who is not totally good, the author of the Book of Job chooses to believe in God's goodness.

If God is testing us, He must know by now that many of us fail the test. If He is only giving us burdens we can bear, I have seen Him miscalculate far too often.

These are his people, this congregation of misfits, crack addicts, and drunks, the unshaven, unwashed, unemployed, and unwanted.

This is life in a fallen world, where wars come and go, where nations rage and people cry in torment. We must be strong, not in ourselves, but in Him. And trust that His love and His wisdom and His light will see us through.

Perhaps only when human effort had done it's best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work.

I know my own soul, how feeble and puny it is: I know the magnitude of this ministry, and the great difficulty of the work; for more stormy billows vex the soul of the priest than the gales which disturb the sea.

Understand that conflict is one way God works in our lives

When our Christ was taken, Peter failed to stand with him. He denied him, Abigail. It broke his heart. But it also perhaps made him into the man he is today. "But Peter also warns us, continually, that we are not able to stand in our own strength. We need God's presence with us. We must pray that God will keep us strong for whatever lies ahead and faithful to the end. And we must encourage one another. Daily.

I clung to my Bible and prayed until I felt utterly exhausted. Mid-morning, after reading, weeping, and praying for what seemed like hours, I fell asleep. The long days and sleepless nights had taken their toll, and my body demanded some rest even if my mind fought against it.

The absence of an inner conflict is one of life's richest blessings," the pastor also had said. "And it comes only from the hand of God.

I never really had the classic struggle. I had faith.

We cannot know what prayer is for until we know that life is war.