"Wow - I've really had a hard month."
"I just can't believe the summer we have experienced - trial after trial."
"I just keep wondering...when will this all end?"
"Okay, Lord....enough is enough."
"What else does God want to teach me? I've never had a year like this!"
I'm just curious how many of you have either uttered these sentences (or the like) yourself or have had a friend say them to you? Not only has my year been unbelievable, but at each turn, I constantly hear my fellow christian friends saying the same thing. I've heard statements similar to the above three times just this week from very dear friends of mine.
Why?
There has to be a reason why God's children are being tried and tested - even more so than ever before. I realize that our current 2010 situations do not compare to the persecutions of the early disciples but it does seem to be more prevalent than ever.
Possibly God is preparing us...perhaps we are in need of massive pruning as Satan continues his constant trek to pull us down and alter our commitments to the one true God.
I have always used that word - pruning. Then just today I met with a friend for a brief moment. She, too, has had a challenging year. As she prepares her mind and spirit for her young son's surgery tomorrow, she commented that she was being sifted again.
Sifted? I mentally stopped in my tracks and was speechless. She told me that she used to say pruned but that she felt sifted was a more appropriate word for what the Lord was doing in her life. After all, when you sift something, you are trying to separate the good from the bad - remove all impurities. Wow!
According to Webster, the definition of sift is to scrutinize, inspect, search or probe. To examine closely. I would have to agree that it sounds like that is exactly what the Lord is doing to our character...examining it closely and removing all impurities. Maybe that's why James instructs us to "count it pure joy for the many trials that we face for it is through the testing of our faith that develops perseverance."
Thank you, my friend, for being a vessel of the Lord today and shedding new light on what God is doing with his Children. Maybe we don't beg for the character training and sifting, but we should welcome it and learn from it. After all, He does know what He is doing and never makes any mistakes!
Living a well examined life... that should be our goal to self examine and pray for God's light to shine on all that needs to be sifted.
ReplyDeleteGood post!
That is what I was saying to you just a few days ago, I wanted to learn whatever it was that my Lord was wanting to teach me. It feels like I have already cultivated the word "perseverance", but maybe not. Teach me Lord.
ReplyDeleteJust keep your head on and your prayer life strong and you’ll get through. Remember God usually allows things to happen to you so you can help someone else down the road. Always look for opportunities to let God use you. You never know if you were put in a situation for God to use you so that person will know Him better. That’s just how I try to look at things.
ReplyDeleteHope your sifting will be over soon and you find yourself refreshed and brighter than before all this started. You know sometimes we just won’t know why we had to go through things until we get to heaven. I think that’s the hardest thing to accept though.