Sometimes the words come flowing out of my mind, and I’m able to effectively type what is going on in my life. Then there are other times my brain feels like it has hit a brick wall, and I have no idea how to express what I am feeling… good or bad!
These past few weeks have been full of ups and downs, equally distributed. I went to a ‘’spiritual awakening” at my church a few weeks ago, and was completely blown away by the power of God. I saw healing take place, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Even in my own life! God placed calls in others lives, as well as mine.
For several weeks following this revival I felt like I was on the tallest point of the Earth. Like I could see everything that the creator had made. It was overwhelmingly beautiful. But the enemy always comes quickly after something like this, and try to bring us down. And that’s just what he did.
It used to upset me when he threw darts my way, I would think “Oh great, here comes another struggle” And I almost was there again, until I was so gently and beautifully reminded by Christ that we do not need to be afraid when the enemy is attacking us, we need to be afraid when he’s not. If he’s not worried about us, if he isn’t trying to trip us up, we need to look at our relationship with God. Because it’s when we become apathetic with our relationship with Christ, that the enemy doesn’t bother us, because we are heading right into his trap.
But when he is concerned on how on fire we are for God, and how we might begin to affect the people around us, and the world, that we can find joy in the trials. We are on the right track that the enemy is concerned.
James 1:2-4
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish it’s work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”
When your faith is tested, it produces an even stronger faith. It produces the inner warrior in you, the “Let’s go conquer this, God.”
I’ve again been faced some health problems lately. I’ve been to the Emergency Room twice in one week. At first I found myself asking God, “Why? Why again?” and he so gently said, “Seth, your faith is so strong, until a struggle comes. Then all of the sudden you belittle me. If I was capable to answer your prayers last week when everything was going well, I’m capable to heal you. Wait patiently. Be still and know that I am God.”
Through this, I was forgetting to let go of some things I have let go in the past. Forgetting that the process of “letting go” is a daily continual process of surrendering your life, dying to yourself, daily. And saying, “Okay God, this life is yours. Your will be done, not mine.”
To say I’m happy in this season of my life would honestly be a lie, it would be a mask I was trying to wear to disguise the worry and fear on my face. But to say I can have joy in the struggle, is not a lie. Joy and happiness are completely and entirely separate. One of the best definitions I’ve ever heard of this, comes from a book called “Choose Joy” by Kay Warren. She says, “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in ALL things.”
I can still have joy in this, I can still praise him in this, and I will. Because He is God, and he is sovereign, and he is worthy of my praise, and because I am unworthy of his grace… Yet He shows me it over and over again. Wow, what a good good Father… That I can praise Him even when things aren’t looking the way I want them to. He has my future in his hands.
I can face tomorrow.. Why? Is it because things are going my way? Things are good right now? No. I can face tomorrow, JUST because He lives.
