spurgeon...

I received much encouragement through this passage as Bill is walking through some significant (the worst he's had) health problems in this season.  Would love your prayers for healing for Bill's stomach issues, peace through his battles with anxiety, and faith and joy to walk through God's will for us as a couple and family.

the hollow of His hand... Isaiah 40:12

Beloved, remember everything that happens to you comes in the course of divine providence.  Your loving heavenly Father has foreseen, foreknown, and, I venture, foreordained it all.  The medicine that you have to drink is bitter, but the unerring Physician has measured the ingredients drop by drop and mixed them in a way that will best work for your highest good.

Nothing in this world happens by chance.  Our great God has "measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure" (Isa. 40:12).  Our great God makes the clouds His chariot and He walks on the wings of the wind (Ps. 104:3).  This same God cares for you with such special care that He has numbered the very hairs of your head (Matt. 10:30).  He even puts your tears in His bottle (Ps. 56:8).  You may rest assured that even those experiences that are causing much sorrow are in accord with His eternal counsel and decree... [for His glory and for your good.]

The rest of the chapter goes on about the greatness of God and the puny-ness of mankind... and closes with these verses (25-31):

  To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
  Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
  Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
  He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
  Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
  but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Our heart (though my flesh resists it) is to rest in the power and might of the Almighty One.  We know there is eternal purpose in what we are walking through and pray that it will only strengthen us in this season to walk steadfastly and not waver in our faith for what God has deemed His good for us.  That is, joyful submission for what He has for us.  =)