“The night also is Yours” (Psalms 74:16)

For saints, nights and seasons of affliction are as much under the control of God as days and seasons of joy. But you have this promise: “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Submit to His purpose…if you unconditionally submit to the Lordship of Christ, you’ll go through the trial with the resolve of a soldier under orders and not a prisoner being punished.

Read Psalm 105. You’ll see that God was involved in all the events that resulted in Israel becoming a great nation. God promised Abraham, “Your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs … they will afflict them four hundred years … afterward they shall come out” (Genesis 15:13-14).

Millions of people were affected by God causing or allowing events to bring about His promise to Abraham. The famine, Joseph’s being sold into slavery and imprisonment, Israel serving Egypt, then having to leave their homes and most dying in the wilderness, knowing only their children would inherit the promise if they had the faith to obey God.
 
If you’re saved, you are, at this moment, living the fulfillment of the promise the Father made to the Son. The plan before time was Christ would obey the Father and sacrifice Himself for us, to “purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works” (Luke 22:42, Titus 2:14).

Before Christ left the Earth, he prayed to the Father for us. “Sanctify them by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth” (John 17:17). Let the Word of God guide your understanding of world events, but “be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Obey the Word, and you’ll be able to “endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3).