The
wilderness is the last place that a believer wants to visit. That's
understandable, since the notion of biblical wilderness brings with it thoughts
of loneliness and suffering. People cringe at the thought of suffering. The
very word conjures uneasy thoughts. Believers sometimes refer to suffering as a
“wilderness time,” perhaps because it makes suffering easier to accept.
However, it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to endure. But suffering
does not have to be all fearful if you desire and know the joy that is meant in
your suffering. While God does not always spare His children of pain, they can
be assured that He will use it for a better cause in their lives as well as in
the lives of others. He never leaves nor forsakes His own and His seed never
begs for bread, the scriptures tell us! If you are a believer and you find
yourself in a dessert or wilderness season today you can transform your way of
thinking about it from a place of suffering to a place of wonder, of change, of
transition and transformation, and of being intimately cared for by the Lord
while you are there. We are daily being called into a more intimate fellowship
with God so why shouldn’t we experience the pain that we may be in at this time
to drive us to Him. Through those doorways, God is opening up ways of
fellowship with His Son. You may have but one question to ask yourself today
sweet friend. Is God’s purpose worth your pain? For if not, you will count it
all loss as you ask, “where is God in the bitterness of broken romances, the
anguish of jobs lost, the hunger of millions people all over the world
and the struggles of all the refugees that seek a better way of living?
Or, you may think that free will isn’t worth what it costs. But God wants you
to understand this; that you have a choice to walk with Him or to walk away
from Him. Our pain on any level is excruciating for God, yet many times He must
restrain Himself to intervene in the way that we think He ought to; for He
knows His greater plan for that pain, even though we can even imagine it.
Isaiah 63:9 tells us that, “In all their (Israel’s) distress he (God) too was distressed.”
Remember this, God is not absent in His silence in your life. Eventually, if
you continue to seek Him, you will find your answer or you will become content
in His purpose for your pain, knowing that His ways are far greater than your
own! Its easy teaching and talking from the mountain top experiences in our
lives yet, it is from those valleys of stripping and plucking, crushing and
dying, exploration and mining of the deepest innermost places of our heart that
we learn to walk and trust Him. In Phil 3:10, it says, “That I may know Him and
the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being
conformed to His death.”. Knowing Jesus personally and having access to the
same power of His resurrection, as well as understanding and having fellowship
in His personal suffering, allows us to be conformed and changed into His
likeness as the old manly nature in us is being put to death. Take on the role
of the postage stamp sweet friend and hang in there until you reach the
destination that God has for you!
Loving on you,
-Bren
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