MSI Press Blog

  From Morning Prayer: “We accept good things from God, and should we not accept evil?” - Job 2:10 1. What Job is actually saying Job is not shrugging. He is not being passive. He is not saying suffering is “fine.” He is naming a truth that most of us would rather avoid: If we only trust God when life is pleasant, then we don’t trust God — we trust the pleasantness. Job is refusing to build a conditional relationship with God. He is saying: My faith is not a transaction. My faith is a posture. 2. Why this line stings us Because we want a moral universe that behaves. We want good people to prosper and bad people to get their cosmic comeuppance. We want fairness, symmetry, predictability. But Job is living in the gap between: the God we believe in , and the world we actually experience. And that gap is where faith either collapses or deepens. 3. Why God allows good things to happen to bad people Job never gets a tidy answer — and that’s the point. Scripture consistently shows that: G...

  Joy in adversity is not a contradiction; it is a mystery. It is the quiet strength that rises when everything else falls away. It does not erase pain or pretend it isn’t there — it simply refuses to let pain define the whole story. When life narrows, joy becomes small but fierce. It might appear as a moment of laughter in the middle of grief, a sunrise that feels like mercy, or the steady heartbeat of faith when nothing makes sense. These are not escapes from suffering; they are glimpses of grace within it. Joy in adversity begins with surrender — not giving up, but giving over. When we stop demanding that life be easy and start trusting that God is present even here, we begin to notice small resurrections: a kind word, a breath of peace, a strength we didn’t know we had. Each is a spark of joy, proof that grace still moves. This kind of joy is resilient. It grows in the cracks, blooms in the dark, and teaches us that love is stronger than loss. It is the joy that Jesus carried t...

   \ From Morning Prayer: "Rescue me from the med." - Psalm 69 The psalmist’s cry is raw, human, and holy. It is the voice of someone who knows they cannot save themselves. But Scripture also shows that not every muddy place is meant to be escaped immediately . Some are meant to be endured, transformed, or understood. 1. Yes, it is biblical to ask — but biblical does not always mean prescriptive Plenty of things in Scripture happened that we are not meant to imitate. The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God — fear, frustration, desperation, longing. But they do not promise that every cry will be answered with instant extraction. Sometimes God rescues. Sometimes God strengthens. Sometimes God waits with us. 2. Are there times God should not rescue us yet? Spiritually speaking, yes. There are seasons when: The mud slows us down so we stop running from something we need to face. The mud humbles us , softening the ground of the heart. The mud reveals what ...