"The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’" (Exodus 4:11-12).

Exodus 4:12 is my life verse. I will not go into details here, but until I was 16 I had a serious speech impediment that resulted in my being sent to special speech therapy classes from 1-11th grade. Because of that impediment, though I was a Christian, I had real reservations about God’s love and Sovereign control over things. Like many there was a line I did not want to cross, feeling that somehow God must be protected.

Then I read this passage. Look again at verse 11. Did you catch it? God takes full responsibility for each individual creature, handicaps and all! Suddenly it dawned upon me that I wasn’t simply the genetic amalgamation of my parents; a chance by-product of the biological act, but God was working in and through the processes to produce a person exactly according to His perfect specification–impediment and all! He had a plan. Redpath is right: "There is nothing -- no circumstance, no trouble, no testing -- that can touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with some great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret, for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is."

What is it that your are facing today? Please understand that (1) God has a purpose in it, (2) it has not taken Him by surprise nor somehow slipped under His radar, and (3) if you will trust Him you will discover that in the thorn there is a blessing.