Do you ever wish that life could just be all those wonderful times when, in one way or many, your dreams are turning into reality before your eyes? Perhaps you’re learning new things or making progress in something that is important to you. Maybe finances are flowing in, or you are making connections with people who are hungry for spiritual truth, and purpose is pulsating through your life. You feel God’s warm sunshine filling you with a sense of being richly blessed. Even if it takes more effort than usual, the contentment and satisfaction of what is being accomplished through you is a thrill. Though I’m sure we would all like to constantly enjoy times like these, life continues to move along, and we sometimes find ourselves having to brave the tumult of experiences that are harder to bear. What we have to face may try our patience and our faith. Finding a sense of value in what we are doing may seem elusive or even nonexistent. We may face dissatisfaction with ourselves or our circumstances if all of our attempts to do the right thing seem to end up caked in the mud of problems and troubles. It’s easy under these circumstances to feel as if you’re abandoned or as if the Lord’s support and guidance is nowhere to be found. Our days can seem as hard to wade through as a mud pit. Our best efforts to do good seem to yield little or no results, and we feel like we’re sinking deeper into that miry hole of hopelessness. But you can draw encouragement and motivation from the fact that you’re not alone. Many of God’s people from the Bible to the present spent time “in the mud” on their way to accomplishing important tasks that He had called them to fulfill. Have you found yourself struggling through one of those “mud pits,” wondering why God would uproot you from some valuable things you were doing and put you face down in the mud or in a place that could hardly seem more like a prison cell if it had physical bars restraining you? Perhaps you are passing through one of those “prophet moments” in which He is just getting you ready for something that is going to reverberate in the hearts of others and whose echoes will carry on into eternity. Walking by faith only comes into full view when walking by sight is no longer an option. If you’ve ever felt like things in your life have gone so wrong that God could no longer rescue you and use you for something He calls great, just remember what King David said. He’d done some terrible things, yet he knew that in his repentance he’d never be abandoned by the divine love that held on to him through everything. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”[Psalm 139:7–12] God’s examples of those He calls great all had one thing in common: they were determined to stay faithful through times when they couldn’t see the Lord’s plan for them. They each had their unique experiences that were designed by the Lord to help them develop a strong, godly character. Perhaps they had to learn humility, like Joseph, or to just obey in faith no matter how impossible something appeared to be, like Elijah. In Daniel’s case, one of the things God seemed to be teaching him was that as long as we are in this life, He has a purpose for us here, and we never fully know what the future holds. Jesus works in each of our lives in a tailor-made way because no two people or the lives they live are ever exactly the same. Whatever the present and future hold for you, remember that you have His promise that He will walk through it all by your side, whether in the palace or the mud. ----Maria Fontaine
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 03:08:08 +0000
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