© 2007 Donna L. Watkins - Baby Wren
Our human nature demands that we seek comfort and ease. Even those who run to and fro at a frantic pace are seeking the comfort of acceptance in their performance. We don't want bad things to happen in our lives and when they do, we cry out, "Why?" If God is love, why would He allow this in my life?It's because of love that He does. Just as good parenting requires discipline and direction, God wants our lives to have all it needs to bear much fruit and to be truly happy and in peace. The methods that produce this in our flesh are not ones we would willingly seek.
God doesn't send troubles and evil acts. The world holds plenty of that with sin abounding. I'm sure the hardest thing God ever did when He created us was to choose to give us free will.
I love this segment from the Smith Wigglesworth Devotional
.God moves upon us as His offspring, as His choice, and as the fruit of the earth. He wants us to be elegantly clothed in wonderful raiment, even as our Master is. His workings upon us may be painful, but the wise saint will remember that among those whom God chastens, it is the one who is trained by that chastening to whom "it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness" (Heb. 12:11). Therefore, let Him do with you what seems good to Him, for He has His hand upon you; He will not willingly take it off until He has performed the thing He knows you need. So if He comes to sift you, be ready for the sifting. If He comes with chastisement, be ready for chastisement. If He comes with correction, be ready for correction. Whatever He wills, let Him do it, and He will bring you to the land of plenty. Oh, it is worth the world to be under the power of the Holy Spirit! If He does not chasten you, if you sail placidly along without incident, without crosses, without persecutions, without trials, remember that "if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons" (Heb. 12:8). Therefore, "examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith" (2 Cor. 13:5). Never forget that Jesus said this word: "They who hear My voice follow Me."
Christ in us is bigger than any of the problems we will ever face! We have the option to trust in Him and let go of the wheel. The only problems that can defeat us are those that we choose to handle alone. We can't solve life's bombardments with our finite minds, but God will reveal a battle strategy that will win every time. He'll also give us the strength to endure.
We may as well stop whining and begin worshiping. I want each event to mold and shape me into the magic and mystery of what Christ wants me to be. He is the Vine and I am the branch. Being a gardener I know pruning necessary for a healthy and beautiful plant. We all want to be healthy and beautiful in this life, so we may as well stop wiggling and submit to the pruning with hopeful expectation.
Consider the words of Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest
:"His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process - that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God."
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