Hello there, welcome. It's time for another word of encouragement from your friends at Our Daily Bread.

Today's encouragement was written by Marvin Williams, and he's titled it, Not for Our Comfort.

Dan was riding his motorcycle when a car swerved into his lane and pushed him

into oncoming traffic. When he woke up two weeks later in the trauma center, he was a mess.

Worst of all, he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a paraplegic. Dan prayed for healing,

but it never came. Instead, he believes God has compassionately taught him that the purpose of this life is that we become conform to the image

of Christ. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen when everything is unicorns and rainbows. It happens when life is tough, when we're

forced to rely upon God through prayer just to make it through the day. The Apostle Paul explained

two benefits of right standing with God, persevering and rejoicing in suffering. These two benefits weren't a call to endure suffering

with stoic fortitude or to find pleasure in pain. It was an invitation to unshakable confidence in

God. Suffering plus Christ cultivates perseverance, perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.

This all flows from a faith that the Father won't abandon us,

but will walk with us through the fire and into the future.

God meets us in our suffering and helps us grow in Him.

Rather than viewing afflictions as his disfavor,

may we look for ways he's using them to sharpen and build our character as we experience his love poured out into our hearts.

Now, I hope you'll find some encouragement direct from God's Word.

This is today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading.

It's taken from Romans, chapter 5, verses 1 through 11.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand,

and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,

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