Status Updates From How Long, O Lord? Second Ed...

God himself is the "very great reward" (Gen. 15.1) of hit covenant people. It is not only in Nehemiah's day that the joy of the LORD is the strength of his people (Neh. 8:10). Paul pray that his Christian readers might grasp more and more in their own experience the limitless dimensions of God's love for them in Christ Jesus (Eph. 3:17b-19).

we ought to be sufficiently childlike that we quickly turn to God for comfort… This is not a sign of immaturity; it is a sign of belonging. Indeed, if we do not instinctively turn to our heavenly Father, our reluctance may signal that we have let the relationship run so cold that our instinctive independence is grossly "unnatural" -that is, unspiritual.

For in a fallen world, pain and suffering can be Gods megaphone, to an individual or to a nation, distracting our attention from the selfishness of a life that functionally disowns God, no matter what we say in our creeds.

Death is God's limit on creatures whose sin is that they want to be gods (Gen. 3:4-5; Rom. 1:18-23). The true God is holy; he is unique, and cannot, by his very nature, tolerate those who try to relativize him. We are not gods; and by death we learn that we are only human. Our pretensions are destroyed.