Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.

Every day I try to evaluate how I might use my time, work and resources for God's purposes and glory.

A few nights ago, I attended an event called Man Church where a man named Jimmy Gant recounted his near death encounter during a road construction accident where he fell into a batch of hot-mix asphalt and was pinned in this mound of smoldering rubble by a piece of heavy machinery rolling over his leg. He was burning alive and the heat literally melted off his fingers.

He's a man that has long been active in community and ministry. During the ordeal, he protests, "Lord, all these years I've served you. This can't be happening to me. Surely, you have the wrong man!"

His sermon to us that night at Man Church was a powerful challenge to our thinking around how "bad things happen to good people".

It posed the question, of all the things we have and can use for God's purposes and His glory (e.g. time, resources, work), what about pain? Will my pain cause me to curse God or will I use it for His glory?

I want to be faithful to the end and use it all –even my pain.

Without question, Jimmy Gant used his pain to glorify God. I was deeply blessed.

Thank you, Brother Gant.