Monday, May 18, 2009

Joy in the Journey! :.>)

Walking with God can sometimes become a puzzling and frustrating journey. There are times when I wonder out loud to God..."what is going on...?" You know, the truth is, even now, when that question comes to my mind, the Spirit quickly pushes my heart to the real question that I 'meant' to ask: "Lord...., what is my purpose in this trial?"

In Romans 8:36 we see that, as Christians and followers of Christ, we are "as sheep to be slaughtered." Now THAT would be a scary thing to be going through, but the next few verses reveal a wonderful truth in ANY trial, no matter how great (or usually comparatively in my case... pretty small). "... I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!"

I am a child of faith being led into LIFE, not a slaughtered death, no matter how grim a situation might look. Through my "suffering" my faith allows God to make me fruitful even then. In Genesis 41:52, Joseph says, "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering..." When I really think about it, if I was able to stand face-to-face with Jesus and ask Him if He LIKED the trials He endured to save my soul... His answer would probably be on the low end of enjoyment... now I am sure that with what He knew the out come would bring, there was a certain level of 'joy' but that is far different from enjoying the process. I am sure that Jesus would rather have been on a journey where everybody loved Him, listened to Him and accepted Him, but the results wouldn't have been the same. Because He endured the adversity that no mere human could have endured, He achieved the amazing end result of my salvation through the payment for my sins so that I could have a personal relationship with Him.

You know, does it really matter that I have adversity from time to time when the end result of any adversity in service to Him will result in eternal life anyway, through faith in my relationship with Jesus? Hmm.... I am not here on earth for the satisfaction of my flesh, but to be of service to God in any way He so desires.. be it difficult or not.

Again, as I learn to understand that, and accept that and endure whatever I must in the will of God, my trials will no longer be trials, but... a walk of faith. Now there is the JOY in the journey! :.>)

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