Thinking, praying, reading, studying the Bible – when we do these things, we are reflecting on the Word of God. To reflect is to contemplate and/or consider, and God wants us to deeply reflect on His Word so that we can better understand Him.

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. – 2 Corinthians 1:5.

Surely there is more profound connection than we sometimes discover between the “sufferings” and the “consolation,” between the “loss” welcomed for Jesus’ sake and the eternal gain that follows after, as harvest follows sowing. “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection” still stands between that willing self-emptying on the one hand, and the deeper “fellowship with His sufferings” on the other, for which even the heart of an apostle craved.

Shall we shrink, then, from anything that makes more room for God? Let us believe, rather, that if He withhold any earthly blessing, it is only that He may bestow “all spiritual blessings,” and remember that He is dealing with us not for our profit merely, but for the good of many and the glory of His own great name, not for time only, but for eternity.
~ GERALDINE GUINNESS

Scripture for opening text taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.