Hi friends and welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread. Our reading was written by

Monica LaRose and she titled it, Past the Boundaries of Knowing. It was a hard day when my husband

found out that like so many others, he too would soon be

furloughed from employment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We believed that God would meet

our basic needs, but the uncertainty of how that would happen was still terrifying.

As I processed my jumbled emotions, I found myself revisiting a favorite poem by 16th century reformer, John of the Cross.

Entitled, I went in, I knew not where.

The poem depicts the wonder to be found in a journey of surrender.

When going past the boundaries of knowing, we learn to discern the divine in all its guises.

And so that's what my husband and I tried to do during this season, to turn our focus from

what we could control and understand

to the unexpected, mysterious, and beautiful ways God can be found all around us.

In 2 Corinthians 4, the Apostle Paul invited believers to a journey from the scene to the unseen,

from the outward to inward realities,

and from temporary struggles to the eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Paul didn't urge this because he lacked compassion for their struggles.

He knew it would be through letting go of what they could understand that they could experience the comfort, joy, and hope they so desperately needed.

They could know the wonder of Christ's life, making all things new.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 7 through 18.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair.

Persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.

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