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Photo by Charles F. Stanley.
Daily Devotion

For All Things?

Are you enduring a dark night of the soul? Hang on—a beautiful morning is coming.

November 2, 2023

Ephesians 5:18-21

In Ephesians 5:20, Paul tells believers to “always [give] thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father.” When we pray in the name of Jesus, we express our desire to reflect His character and seek His glory. Praying in this way is vital to understanding how to appreciate whatever the Lord allows in our life—including losses, diagnoses, and disappointments.

So, how do we give thanks for all things? Consider everything Joseph experienced. Until he was a teenager, he’d known only love and security. But one day his troubles began, courtesy of jealous older brothers. Joseph found himself thrown down into a pit and later into prison, robbed of everything but his faith. For more than a decade, he waited. And though Scripture never tells us what Joseph was thinking, he must have endured some dark nights of the soul.

Later, however, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers in Egypt and told them, “God sent me ahead of you to save lives” (Gen. 45:5). Those words reveal that when he looked back at every hardship, Joseph understood how the Lord had been at work. His response was not one of bitterness but of gratitude.

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