God is Never Finished With Us, Let's Persevere
by Callan & Shelley Coleman(53)Houseboat Ministries
One of the fruits of the spirit is perseverance. There are so many huge distractions that come our way in this life. Some bog you down for years. These are the horrible distractions that come from how terrible people can be to us. Some accuse you of wrong doing even when you did nothing wrong. We struggle through the distraction of people hurting your family members, walking out on their marriages, and taking the kids. Business partners betraying us costing us tons of money, all the while lying, and basically stealing it all. We know people who have gone through these things, and we have personally also. Since you all walked a mile in your own shoes, I am sure you can relate from your own experiences. But let's be encouraged.
The first thing I want to dwell on is the fact that our faithful Lord takes care of us through every situation. He provides, sustains, and comforts. We read in our favorite devotional this morning that it is the brokeness of the people of God that allowed the miracles to take place. The widow who poured out her last bit of oil (2 Kings 4:1-7), Mary's broken alabaster jar (Matt 26:7), Jesus' broken body allowing sinners to drink, then live. God shines through the cracks of these broken vessels. His glory shines when we've allowed ourselves to be broken completely.
We also must humbly learn from our experiences. We discover new ways to be careful of who we take our time to get involved with. The enemy is so tricky, and strategic. He will put people in our path who talk, and seem like they are authentic Christians, so we trust them. But perhaps we don’t do enough analysis of whether we are seeing true fruit in their lives. We want so badly for this person to represent the fulfillment of our dreams, we look past their moodiness, and inconsistent ways. Ooh the bad marriages that come from this thinking. We then have to deal with the repercussions of this bad relationship, which can take us off the track for years. Why didn't we listen to our instincts? We have to remember to slow down and study the strategies of the enemy. He's cunning, and knows where we are vulnerable. We have to be able to trust God when it means passing up a situation to wait for a better one.
I think that God’s will is for things to work out, but disobedient people derail this. God allows bad things to happen because we have free will whether to obey Him and operate in the blessing we inherit, or not. People choose to hurt each other, or to not grow in their faith. My brother is crushed from comments Christians made to him when he was in pain over his loss saying "it was God's will." What if God’s will was for those marriages to work out, but if one half of the relationship is a ‘dream stealer’ God's flow is stopped? That's what it looks like to me. We have free will, and are very much a part of helping make God’s will work out. I just recently heard a sermon by Pastor Wayne Cordiero when he was speaking on this subject explaining that we have a role to play in whether God’s destiny plays out in our lives to the fullest.
So we must be patient when someone betrays us. God reminds us that if something continues to bother us, let's go through the healing process by spending more time praising him, and reading His word. It is the power of the Word and the continued anointing of the Holy Spirit that renews and refreshes. It also gives us peace for the fact that these problems are solvable, and changeable only by him. It is our job to pray, and his job to work in the supernatural realm to move the mountains. We should be still and know that He is God, and let Him do the work. Yes, we want the problem to be fixed right now, but it never works that way does it? Let’s be patient and obedient to allow the Lord to work his ways.
We also remind each other that "He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for morning, peace for despair." He "restored the years the locusts have eaten." "They that wait on the Lord with renew their strength..."
He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is not finished with the task, and has not thrown away the vision he gave to us. He who began a good work, will be faithful to complete it. He can recover what was lost, and more because he is the Lord of the breakthrough, the God who pours out blessings that we cannot contain. It is an awesome thing to see how God blesses my brothers with amazing things to give them joy in the midst of their struggle. I have been encouraged seeing how supernatural blessings come the way of someone who is hurting. It has happened to me countless times as well.
What should we meditate on?:
- We look at how blessed we are still.
- We count it joy, because the testing of our faith has produced patience, and perfection for us. We then need to use our trials to help others through theirs.
- Look forward to the future God has for us, because His plans have not ended with a derailment. In fact, he can use what the enemy determined for a curse, and turn it into a blessing.
- We can rejoice because the refiner’s fire will cause us to come forth as gold.
- We can encourage others to hang on, God will be there for them, because we know from first hand experience.
- It will be a testimony to others to how amazing God is as we recall the many ways he turns situations around for us.
Article submitted Thursday, October 15, 2009 & read 352 times.
Leave Your Comments:
» left by Teresa(1,457)(286 days 17 hours ago.)
Cal & Shelley, beautiful piece of encouragement here. So glad to have you around these parts again :-) Thank you for sharing! I do hope we can find time to connect before I move. I'll send Shelley a personal note. Many blessings to you - hopefully we will be able to catch each other sometime when you guys are in LA recording or something... Big love and lots of hugs! Thankfully there is always e-mail, facebook, and of course, World-Wide Bible Studies to keep us vitually connected.Respond to this comment
» left by Marijo Phelps(250)(278 days 16 hours ago.)
Excellent piece of encouragement here! Thanks for writing and sharing this with your readers. Marijo (Mary Jo is how it is pronounced)Respond to this comment