I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Thursday morning, the 5th of October, 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We start in the Book of Job which some say is the oldest book in the Bible, the farmer, Job says in 19:25: 

"For I know that my Redeemer lives and He shall stand at last on the earth;…"  

We need to wait patiently like the good farmer Job did. I don't think a man suffered more in the Old Testament than the farmer Job, yet he could still say, "I know that my Redeemer lives…" You and I need to be prepared to suffer if it will ultimately make us better people. Now, the other person who suffered more than anyone else apart from the Lord Jesus was Paul, the Apostle. He says in Romans 5:3-4: 

"And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."

You see, through suffering, we are moulded into the people that God wants us to be - patient, loving, gentle people. The scars of sorrow make us into men and women of God, and it takes a long time, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, to grow into a child of God. 

Many, many years ago, I worked in that beautiful country, Swaziland. I worked in the south, where it is extremely warm. I worked on a huge sugarcane plantation, and that sugarcane used to be irrigated. I am talking about thousands of hectares of sugarcane. The sugarcane grew literally like weeds and we could cut it at 11 months. Then I moved to South Africa, I have neighbours that grow sugarcane, but that sugarcane takes 23 months to grow because of the frost, the cold and the hardship. But you see, the sucrose is what you get paid for, and the sucrose in the sugarcane that is 23 months old far exceeds the sucrose that they take out of the sugarcane which grows very quickly in a short time. 

I want to say to you today, do not despair if you are going through hardship. Do not be concerned if you say, "Well, I am just going through so many tough times, I just don't know how I am going to cope." You will cope, and not only will you cope, you will grow through it in stature and become like Job, who could say, 

"Though He slay me, yet will I (still) trust Him."
Job 13:15

Have a wonderful day today.
Jesus bless you richly,
Goodbye