We will post the grand conclusion to our visit from an "angel" 😜 on Sunday night and Monday. Meanwhile, sometimes we can imagine our circumstances by reading the Psalms, written from the 10th to 5th centuries B.C.  

Psalm 44    author unknown

vv. 12-14 "You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale. You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, the scorn and derision of those around us. You have made us a byword among the nations. The people shake their heads at us."

vv. 17-23 "All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and covered us over with deep darkness. If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever." 

     Commentary: The psalmist finds no evidence of significant sin that would account for such rejection. Though the people are upright like Job, they still undergo adversity, dark periods of testing. 

     "For your sake...God?" The Holy Spirit reveals that suffering comes to God's faithful people because they remain loyal to him in a hostile world. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 8:36. Believers who refuse to conform to the evil world will undergo suffering. They are assured of victory through Jesus Christ, knowing that no adversity can separate them from God's love.

     "If we are children, then we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his glory." - Romans 8:17