Thought of the day
Paul writes Ephesians 3 from prison, and the way he describes himself is worth noticing. He doesn't call himself Rome's prisoner. He calls himself "the prisoner of Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 3:1). Rome may have decided where he slept that night, but Rome didn't get to decide who was actually in charge of his life.
That matters because Paul knew the people reading his letter might look at his circumstances and wonder if God had lost control. So he tells them plainly, "I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you" (Ephesians 3:13). The man in chains is the one reassuring everyone else.
Every one of us eventually walks into a season that doesn't make sense . . . a diagnosis . . . a marriage that falls apart . . . a prayer that doesn't get answered the way you had hoped. Christianity doesn't hand you a tidy sentence that suddenly makes hard things make sense. What it gives you instead is a God who entered suffering rather than watching it from a safe distance.
At the center of the gospel isn't a clever explanation . . . it's a cross. Jesus knew grief, rejection, betrayal, and injustice firsthand. And at the end isn't the cross . . . it's an empty tomb. Suffering is real. Evil is real. Grief is real. But none of them get the final word.
This is worth remembering the next time your circumstances look nothing like what you expected from a good and faithful God. Your situation doesn't get to decide whether God is working, any more than Paul's prison cell did. It's not evidence that He's absent. It's just not the end of the story.
Today, if you're in a season that doesn't make sense, don't demand an explanation before you'll trust Him. Let the empty tomb be where you stand while you're still asking the questions.