The Hidden Prince

by Tessa Afshar

“God wants your hearts to learn to endure, too. Endure in love. Love him even when he seems absent. Love him when he has offended or disappointed you. Love him when you feel he has not protected you.”

If you do not learn to lean into God’s enduring love, in time, you might become slaves to bitterness. And that’s a far worse slavery than merely being captives in Babylon.”

“Where do you draw the line for God, Jared? Even if he does not take away this pain? Even if he does not restore your independence, your strength, your health? Will you still choose him, even if? Choose him every day?”

He had two stories to live. In the first, God had saved his eye. In the second, God had taken his eye. Both were true.

His love for you endures,

Love him even when he seems absent. Love him when he has offended or disappointed you.

I wondered if God’s plans for Jared might be able to survive the devastation I had dealt him.

malady.

“Even if you do not heal me,” he gasped out, “you are still good.” They were empty words. His heart refused to inhabit them.

Help me respond faithfully to this journey of pain. Give me the strength to draw near to you rather than allow this agony to carry me away in its tide, separating us. Even if healing eludes me, let me find you in the midst of my pain.

A singular thought seemed to find its way to the surface of his mind, like oil on water, refusing to sink.

God had moved before we had recognized our need.

But I had learned love did not prosper in self-protection.

have a feeling that if we pick up the bundle of our disappointments and unfulfilled dreams and follow God’s plans one wobbly step at a time, in the end we will find our way home.”