Friends in Christ,

You ever have a “monkey wrench” day?  That’s a day when something—or even someone—shows up to throw your well laid plans out of whack.  Maybe it’s the realization that you’ve overscheduled.  Or the arrival of an unforeseen illness.  Maybe it’s a bill you’d forgotten about suddenly arriving in the mail, or a new project that needs to get done—and it lands on your desk.  Whatever the issue, in cases like this, time can feel like the enemy and our blood pressure can go through the roof.  We can feel as if we’re in a stranglehold.

The unexpected things come—and with that comes the need to cope.  We know this in small ways and in big ones.  But 1 Corinthians 10:13 reminds us of something beautiful.  Paul undoubtedly wrote these words in the midst of a BIG monkey wrench, a BIG trial of life.  In fact, Paul references one of the biggest monkey wrenches of them all—the temptation to act against God’s will.  Talk about stressful!  But Paul says this: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. 

And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”  God reminds us that the temptation to break covenant with God is a universal experience—and no matter what . . . in some way, either in our time or in God’s eternal time, the stranglehold of that temptation will not weigh us down any longer.  We will be able to stand tall and free.  What comfort!  Kind of makes the stranglehold of life’s other monkey wrenches seem like small potatoes, doesn’t it?  What a freedom-granting God we serve!