I had a great time with the Lord this morning and decided to share a little story with you but first here is how I got there. As usual, I started off my day with Oswald (http://utmost.org/) and his scripture was Hebrews 11:6: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Notice the important "qualifying" part... "those who EARNESTLY seek HIM"? How easy it is to miss that part! Anyway, that led me to reading chapters 11 and 12 of Hebrews which the author is encouraging his readers to not give up, to endure the suffering to look at those who went before them and see them as examples for us to follow... By faith...Noah, Abraham, Isaac... Moses... lived against all odds and believed God and it was credited to them as righteousness... even though they never saw the fulfillment of God's promises.
So, after I read these chapters I decided to read one of the commentaries in e-sword and here is an excerpt of the commentary that I read:
"The Christian view of suffering is now presented. Why do persecution, testings, trials, sickness, pain, sorrow, and trouble come into the life of the believer? Are they a sign of God's anger or displeasure? Do they happen by chance? How should we react to them? These verses teach that these things are part of God's educative process for His children. Although they do not come from God, He permits them, then overrules them for His glory, for our good, and for the blessing of others. Nothing happens by chance to the Christian. Tragedies are blessings in disguise, and disappointments are His appointments. God harnesses the adverse circumstances of life to conform us to the image of Christ."
When I read the last line it reminded me of the story I mentioned earlier that I wanted to share. Tom and I heard a great audio teaching where the teacher talks about three guys that followed him around and went to every speaking engament he had and made it their business to annoy, aggravate and disrupt his life as much as possible (He called them the 3 Stooges!). He talked about how he hated these guys and tried everything to get them to stop following and harassing him but they just kept coming! Then he told us that God gave him a dream and in that dream he was sitting in God's lap and God asked him if he would like to see a sculpture that He was making. Of course he said yes so God brought out this piece of sculpture and it was looking pretty good but it was still not quite finished and there people that were still working on it. God asked him if he wanted to know who he was sculpting and then He asked him if he wanted to know who was working on it. Well, the piece of art work was HIM and the workers were the three Stooges that were making him miserable!! Then God said to him, "Don't resent the tools I use to form and shape you"... From then on, he went out of his way to say "hi" to the guys and be nice to them and eventually they went away.
I bring these two things up, the commentary and the story to remind us that God is not surprised by anything that happens to us!! Bad things that happen to us are not to punish us (although sometimes they are the consequences of our actions), having an illness, financial struggles or even a husband that struggles with pornography are not accidents... or punishments, they are tools that God is using to form and shape you!! In the book "Lies Women Believe and the Truth that sets them free" one of my favorite statements Nancy Leigh DeMoss makes is "Our circumstances do not make us who we are but they REVEAL who we are"!? What has your circumstances revealed about you?? Will you allow God to use these tools to form and shape you?
Father, I pray right now that we all will not resent the tools you use to form us! Help us Lord to be yielded to Your working and skillful hands and allow You to form and shape us into the image of Christ more and more every day. Help us to trust You with all things in our lives and surrender everything to you, In Jesus name, amen!
