In the Book of Joshua, several times God tells Joshua to "be strong and courageous." He said BE strong and courageous, not FEEL strong and courageous. There's a huge difference. It's very hard to control our feelings, but we have much better control of our actions.
So BE strong and courageous today. Especially if you don't FEEL like it. Make that choice.
So many times I have seen Facebook prayer requests that have ended well, and replies are often "God is good." So, does that mean when healing doesn't happen that God is somehow NOT good?
It is certainly hard to understand why the healing didn't happen, why the job you so desperately needed never materialized, when the relationship you have built your life on ends. We can do everything in our power to fix things and still come up short. We can ask ourselves "why" a million times and still struggle with the lack of an answer.
Certainly, God is in perfect control of every event that touches us. Sometimes terrible things happen and we don't know why. Sometimes there is just no explanation good enough to put any salve on the wound whatsoever.
Our prayers are usually for direct results. But the fruit is so often in the journey. It's been on the dark paths that I've learned a great deal about myself, where I'm at in my faith journey and my relationship to Jesus Christ. I've learned that He really will never leave my side, and He will give me what I need to walk that path. And He always, always has a purpose, even if I can't see it.
But most importantly, God will use that experience, if we allow it, to conform us into the likeness of Christ, little by little, and to grow our faith as we see that with each struggle, He is faithful.
Yes, God is good - All the time.
You just never really know for certain how life is going to turn out. I was thinking about three women of the Bible - Sarah (wife of Moses), Hannah (mother of Samuel) and Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist) and how they gave birth to their sons after years of infertility, and in Sarah and Elizabeth's cases, at an advanced age. I am sure all of these women felt the anguish of infertility and certainly none expected that to change. And look what happened!
Perhaps, with a God Who is so totally in control of everything that happens, or doesn't happen, we should not be so quick to give up when things appear to be impossible. There is no such concept of "impossible" when it comes to God. Don't ever lose hope.
I'm in the habit of reading Dr. Charles Stanley's devotionals (sign up at InTouch.org - they are free, and greatly useful). Today's was entitled "Our Trials" and it immediately caught my attention (by divine design, I'm sure, since I'm currently up to my eyeballs dealing with little life challenges).
The devotional mentions that we all have trials, both the believer and the unbeliever, and outlines that these troubles can come from various sources:
1) Other peoples' sin. I've always envisioned this as someone jumping up and down in the "mud-puddle of sin" and anyone nearby is going to get splashed to a certain degree. The closer you are to the sin, the muddier you're going to get.
2) Spiritual Warfare - Satan attacks anyone who is a threat to his mission, so I guess when Satan trips you up and frustrates your work, that's a good thing. Looking at the big picture, that is. You're valuable enough to God to warrant Satan's attention.
3) Our own sin. Kind of a no-brainer. It's going to come back and bite us sooner or later.
4) Trials from God Himself. You can be sitting there minding your own business, and along comes trouble.
The overall message in the devotional is that no matter what the source of your difficulties, God has a reason and a purpose for allowing them. He will take them and use them to accomplish something good. Maybe in you. Maybe in someone else. Maybe in a lot of people. And He will always bless you for your faithfulness in going through the trials in the right way - His way.
I was imagining baking a cake. All these raw ingredients are in The Bowl That Is You. You've got some raw eggs, some flour, some sugar, some baking powder... And it's neither tasty nor useful. But beat up those ingredients a little bit, and put them through the fire, and they change. You end up with something really good. As long as you don't forget the leavening agent, which is Jesus Christ, who makes sure the whole mess is raised up properly, your cake won't fall flat. And personally, if I'm going to get beat up by life and go through the fire, I'd rather not fall flat.
As you enter into a time of trial, don't forget God is allowing it for a reason and a purpose, will limit it to the shortest amount of time necessary, and He will never leave your side as you walk through it. Trusting Him is a choice. Keep your eyes on Him and take it one step at a time. There's blessing on the other side of this.
Our women's Bible study group at church is currently doing "Giving God Your Future" by Christa Kinde. It's an excellent study and I highly recommend it. We're nearly done and as a person who tends to be a worrywart, I've learned a lot about the peace and serenity that comes from trusting a most trustworthy God.
As we go through the attributes of God and why He is more than capable that we are of directing our futures, I've also been looking at how God has directed my past, which I believe is necessary to feel comfortable in totally entrusting my future to Him.
Looking back at the top three or four really hard stretches of my life, I can see exactly how I was blessed on the other side of each of those challenges. And while the hardships were tough to bear at times, the blessing far outweighed the difficulties, so much so that I'd go through it again if I needed to in order to get what I got. The blessing has been more than commensurate with the hardship involved.
While each tribulation has resulted in blessing, collectively the experiences are changing me. Looking back on how I reacted to various periods of crisis, I find myself more content to accept that God has a plan and purpose rather than to complain and bemoan the situation. I find myself more comfortable not having to know exactly what is coming and how God plans to provide for me through it, and just accepting that my role is to keep my eyes on Him and trust that He will make a way even when -- no, especially when -- I don't see it.
I love to feel these changes as they are happening. That edifying and uplifting feeling of being the clay under the Potter's skillful and all-knowing hands is more valuable than anything else I've ever experienced.
"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." -- Isaiah 64:8
I suspect many Christians can recall times in life when we were going through a time of reshaping and can feel the Potter working on us. We find ourselves reacting differently, feeling differently, thinking differently... and we know we are being changed. While it's always good when God is reshaping us, it doesn't always feel so good when you're the clay that's being reworked.
All of this took me back to high school when I did a lot of work with clay in art class. We had a large plastic garbage can filled with a mixture of dry clay and water. The first thing we'd do is pull out a handful of that sloppy mess and put it on a large, special surface to dry out to a consistency we could work with. When the surface had absorbed the excess water, we would scrape up the clay into a mound, but before shaping it we would throw it, hard, many times against the surface to knock the air bubbles out, as air bubbles would weaken the structure of the finished product. At that point we would put the mound of clay on the potter's wheel and begin shaping it into something that bore no resemblance to the sloppy mess that we pulled out of the garbage can. And when it looked amazing, into the kiln it went to bake at a high temperature to help it stay amazing. And in the appropriate time, the work of art is pulled from the kiln, much more beautiful and stronger than it started out in the garbage can.
Suddenly that comparison between me and the clay became very real.
I was in that garbage can and had no clue there was something better.
I've felt lifeless and formless and without purpose.
I've had the air knocked out of me a time or two.
I've been shaped into something that bears no resemblance to how I started out.
I've been in the fire, and God took me out of it when the time was appropriate.
I've come out of the experiences better and stronger and more purposeful than the sloppy mess that came from the garbage can.
There are so many references in the Bible to the Lord being the Potter and we being the clay. As I read through them, a lot about life starts to make sense - in this comparison there's not only a sense of purpose for us, but also addresses truth and submission and trust.
Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? -- Romans 9:21
Woe to those who quarrel with their maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, "What are you making?" Does your work say, "The potter has no hands? -- Isaiah 45:9
You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, "You did not make me"? Can the pot say to the potter, "You know nothing"? -- Isaiah 29:16
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, "Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. -- Jeremiah 18
He knows what He's doing, we don't. He knows the finished product, we don't. He knows the purpose of it all, we don't. How can any believer not trust Him more reading through these verses?
