Hope Is on the Horizon.

God, Trials, Trust 0

What we needed was a new perspective.  Our gratitude had grown tired, and we needed grace.

We found it when we stumbled across today’s verse, Romans 5:3.  There is something wonderfully man-sized about the apostle’s response to his hardships.  Stand the test, friends, for the end is in sight.  Hope is on the horizon.  A right approach to problems — whether great or small — is a wonderful thing to have hammered into your character.

Sometimes we think of the suffering in Romans 5 as the huge life catastrophes.  We forget that God’s grace-giving power is mostly for everyday sorts of tests and trials. . . .

What are your tests today?  Where do you need perseverance, staying power, and hope?  Ask God to help you step back and see a bigger picture than the trial right in front of your nose.  He uses everything in our lives to mold our character and make us more like his Son.

— Joni Eareckson Tada, Pearls of Great Price, April 28 entry

Shattered Dreams

God, Life, Trials 0

God goes to work to help us see more clearly.  One way He works is to allow our lower dreams to shatter.  He lets us hurt and doesn’t make it better.  We suffer and He stands by and does nothing to help, at least nothing that we’re aware we want Him to do.

In fact, what He’s doing while we suffer is leading us into the depths of our being, into the center of our soul where we feel our strongest passions.

It’s there that we discover our desire for God.  We begin to feel a desire to know Him that not only survives all our pain, but actually thrives in it until that desire becomes more intense than our desire for all the good things we still want.  Through the pain of shattered lower dreams, we wake up to the realization that we want an encounter with God more than we want the blessings of life.  And that begins a revolution in our lives.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 4

Recognizing Your Hurt

Forgiveness, Healing, Trials 0

“I’m fine,” I said.  “It hasn’t affected me.  I’m going on with the call on my life.”

But my answer was nothing more than pride.  I was extremely hurt but denied it, even to myself.  I would spend hours trying to figure out how all this could happen to me.  I was in shock, numb, and amazed.  But I suppressed these thoughts and put on a strong front when in reality I was weak and deeply injured….

“God, please help me get out of this hurt and offense,” I pleaded.  “It is too much for me to handle.”

This was exactly where the Lord wanted me — at the end of myself.  Too often we try to do things in the strength of our souls.  This does not cause us to grow spiritually.  Instead, we become more susceptible to falling.

The first step to healing and freedom is to recognize you are hurt.  Often pride does not want us to admit we are hurt and offended.  Once I admitted my true condition, I sought the Lord and was open to His correction.

— John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, p. 146-147

God wants to bless us.

God, Life, Trials 0

There’s never a moment in all our lives, from the day we trusted Christ till the day we see Him, when God is not longing to bless us.  At every moment, in every circumstance, God is doing us good.  He never stops.  It gives Him too much pleasure.  God is not waiting to bless us after our troubles end.  He is blessing us right now, in and through those troubles.  At this exact moment, He is giving us what He thinks is good.

There, of course, is the rub.  He gives us what He thinks is good, what He knows is good.  We don’t always agree.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 1-2

Hardships That Hang On

God, Trials 0

The core of God’s plan is to rescue us from sin and self-centeredness.  Suffering — especially the chronic kind — is God’s choicest tool to accomplish this.  It is a long process.  But it means I can accept my paralysis as a chronic condition.  When I broke my neck, it wasn’t a jigsaw puzzle I had to solve fast or a quick jolt to get me back on track.  My paralyzing accident was the beginning of a lengthy process of becoming like Christ.

— Joni Eareckson Tada, Pearls of Great Price, February 17 entry

Even If Not

Forgiveness, God, Trials, Trust 0

He knows your heart, dear one.  He has not left you alone.  And by trusting in His sovereign wisdom, goodness, and love, you, too, may one day see the sweet restoration of everything you’ve prayed for.

But even if not, you will have found a refuge in His will and in His care — a blessed place that is reached only by those who trust His heart — and keep trusting it even when the darkness closes in around them.

— Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Forgiveness, p. 165

A Good Cry

Compassion, Healing, Letting Go, Trials 0

Having a good cry can help us to heal.  We can feel sad about what is happening or has happened and then move back into the present moment.  Breaking down in tears over a seriously painful event is perfectly natural and healthy.  Think of your tears as a sign of your compassion and love.  Allow yourself to be fully present to the pain.  Feel your emotions.  Observe your thoughts.  Your tears will help to heal your broken heart.  Let your vulnerability be your strength.  Tears of sorrow cleanse your soul.  Crying is a sign of acceptance.  You face the pain, you feel it in your body, you observe it in your mind and emotions.  Crying doesn’t last long.  You catch yourself, realizing it is now time to let go and move on.

— Alexandra Stoddard, Choosing Happiness, p. 83

Overwhelmed

God, Trials, Trust 0

First Corinthians 10:13 is certainly a promise — but it isn’t talking about trials.  It’s talking about temptation.  The promise is that God will always, always give you the power to say no to sin.  But when it comes to heartaches, physical problems, and disappointments — things out of your control, difficult circumstances suddenly thrust upon you — you may very well be overwhelmed beyond what you can bear.  There is a kind of suffering that rips your world apart and leaves you bewildered and wounded.  There are trials that overwhelm.

I drew a deep breath, showing my friend the context of the promise — and her brow furrowed.  “But take heart,” I told her.  “It’s when we are at the end of our strength . . . that’s when we fall helplessly into the everlasting arms of God.  That’s when God floods our hearts with sustaining grace.”

— Joni Eareckson Tada, Pearls of Great Price, January 31 entry

Grieving

Compassion, Healing, Life, Trials 0

It seems to me that I and most of the people I know have forgotten how to grieve like this — not only for others but for ourselves.  We have forgotten how to grieve at all.  It no longer comes naturally to us.  We have to learn it from self-help books and therapists.  Or we have to do without.

All I have to offer you is a list of don’ts.  Don’t forbid painful topics.  Don’t judge.  Don’t preach.  When people tell you of their pain, don’t say anything at all.  Don’t think, if you can help it, at least at first.  Just hear it and, if you can, cry.  Cry for them and for yourself, because you, too, have suffered such things, or will.  Cry that there is evil in this world, that we are all of us sometimes the victims and often the perpetrators of it.  Cry that people, however messed up, and even if they themselves caused the misery in which they find themselves, have to suffer at all….  Remind yourself of these truths about the pain of our world and the sins that occasion it.  Others’ sins.  Our own sins.  Because it is only this grieving, this taking of a knee, that truly comforts us, that connects us to one another and to God.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 96