When we suffer and die for Christ it only means that we will begin living with him in heaven.
—2 Timothy 2:11 (TLB)

I have a friend who during the Depression lost his job, a fortune, a wife, and a home. But he tenaciously held to his faith-the only thing he had left. One day he stopped to watch some men doing stonework on a huge church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of stone. “What are you going to do with that?” asked my friend. The workman said, “See that little opening away up there near the spire? Well, I’m shaping this down here, so it will fit in up there.” Tears filled the eyes of my friend as he walked away, for it seemed that God had spoken through the workman to explain his ordeal through which he was passing, “I’m shaping you down here, so you’ll fit in up there.”

Prayer for the day

Thank You, Lord, for all the “shaping” in my life, which brings me closer to You.