When you look around our modern world, it’s hard to see any resemblance to the world of the Bible and when it was written. But if we look closely, there are many ways in which our worlds are the same.

In the Bible you can find many stories of broken and hurt people facing challenges not unlike the ones we face today. We are all broken in some area of life. We may experience brokenness differently, but because we live in a fallen, less than perfect world, and we were raised in less than perfect homes, we all experience some degree of brokenness. It is a reality of the human experience. It is the story we have all found ourselves in.

Here is the irony. All of us want to experience life at its best.   All of us want to enjoy life to the fullest.  But throughout our life we have these painful experiences, traumatic events, relational conflicts… and these experiences can often keep us from enjoying life the way we hoped. If these issues go unchecked, they can hijack our faith, shut down our hearts, cause us to give up on our dreams, and prevent us from moving forward…

When we experience pain, when someone causes us pain, it can feel impossible to forgive them. The problem is, the more we hold back forgiveness, the more emotionally entangled we become to the anger and the more that anger and bitterness consume us.

But just as God was working with all those we’ve read about in the Bible, God is with you, too. God will never leave you nor forsake you, because God demonstrated His great love when He gave His very own Son Jesus Christ, for all of us.

You may not know what God’s timing in your life will be. But you can believe God’s purpose is bigger than your past and His love deeper than your pain.