This last week God saw fit to crush me. He knew that I would hold strong against people and circumstances, so He Himself did the crushing. It was so intense that I did not know how to respond other than telling God, “Though [You] slay me, yet will I trust [You]…” (Job 13:15).
I do not know what you are going through, but my prayer is that you will persevere and press in to the Lord. Even when you cannot understand Him, be sure that He understands everything about you. Praying these words below would be a blessing to you.
God has to crush your life out of you to put His life into you.
There is not an easy way, because the easy way would never change you. “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart…” (Deuteronomy 8:2).
The wilderness reveals you.
There are two forces that create the nature of Christ in you: an outward breaking away, and an inward giving away. The outward is the hammer and chisel of external circumstances. The inward is the willing submission of your life to Jesus. The less submission, the harder the hammer must strike you. “…Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1).
As a diamond is formed in adversity, so God forms the saint.
You cannot have the victory without the battle.
Never think the tough times have no meaning, as they are the times that have the most meaning in who we become. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).
His plans are always good, whether we see it or not.
With man, even in his good his motives are often bad. With God, He is always good.
Never imagine your life is supposed to be easy. “…We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
If you didn’t have the trials, you wouldn’t know what you were made of.
You would not learn the lesson if He gave you the answers before the test was over.
It is the testing in the wilderness that prepares you for the promise at the end. It was the Lord, “who fed you in the wilderness… that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end” (Deuteronomy 8:16).
Trusting the Lord is refined in the wilderness of “nothing makes sense”.
Never set your goals based on the difficulties you may face, but the promises you will walk in. “You must not fear them, for the Lord your God Himself fights for you” (Deuteronomy 3:22).
He never promises an easy life, but a life in which He would never leave you.
Live your life such that when circumstances would bring you to your knees, you are already there. King David wrote, “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry entered His ears” (2 Samuel 22:7).
When you see how circumstances draw you nearer to God, then you will begin to understand God’s plans more clearly.
Consider that the very reason for your troubles are that you would invite the Lord Jesus nearer to thee.
Your life is the classroom and your circumstances the lesson. The hardest lesson is the one that grows you the most. “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness…'” (Hebrews 3:7-8).
It is in the quietness of nature that the Lord’s voice soothes our soul. We need to get out of man’s creations and into God’s Creation.
It is in the wilderness that the Lord can separate us from the things of men and into the things of God.
We pray the most in the hardest of times, so consider that is why the Lord allows them. “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears” (Psalm 18:6).
We want an easy life, but the Lord is shaping us with difficult people and hard circumstances.
Though I feel so low, yet I worship a God Who is on High. “I will cry out to God Most High, To God who performs all things for me” (Psalm 57:2).
Live your life such that your prayer time with God remains the same, in good times and in the bad.
Blessings to you,
Paul
All Scripture is in red and uses the NKJV (New King James Version) translation unless otherwise noted.