7/1/2023 0 Comments Utterly aloneIt’s a lesson I will work on for the rest of my life because I can have some awfully big feelings! How about you? Do you confuse what you feel with what you know to be true? What we feel is real, but it is not always the truth. Why or how had I assumed God wasn’t near because He wasn’t changing my circumstances or healing my body? Why had I assumed his silence meant He was absent? I need to trust that if God doesn’t remove the pain, He will never remove Himself.Īll refining is allowed to help us remove a faulty view of God. I need to know He’s with me in the midst of my pain. It’s what I needed most that day and every day since. I’ve been with you every moment and I’ll be with you until the end of time.” Sweetly and gently, the Holy Spirit whispered, “You may feel alone, but you're actually not alone. What was the point of all this physical pain? My prayers looked like this: “Jesus, just tell me what to do and I’ll fix it! I’ll change! I’ll do whatever you want!” It all seemed desperate and futile. I begged God to show me what He wanted me to learn? Was there something I was doing wrong? The rule follower in me wanted to know what I could fix. ![]() I had gone through seasons of pouring over the healing scriptures, praying them, and believing for them, but still, the pain persisted. I stopped asking others for prayer, and I ceased asking God myself because honestly, it didn’t seem like my Jesus was interested. It persisted and was a result of a car accident I had years before. The pain bore through my neck and upper back. The pain had kept me up again another night. It was a cozy space I created to pray and read the Word each day, but this day instead of feeling warm, I felt alone, utterly lost. The sun was barely up as I plopped my weary body into my “Jesus Chair.” My friend, Karen, named it that because it was the chair I sat in every morning to meet with Jesus. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned the flames will not harm you, for I am your Savior, Yahweh, your mighty God, the Holy One of Israel. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. “When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on me to be there with you. We often mistake his training as punishment, but all refining is designed to remove our wrong perceptions of God and draw us closer to God if we let it. But when we allow God to train us, and rebuild our character, He will make something beautiful out of us. I’ll include ways God has refined me and share other’s stories every other week. We’re spending three months this fall discussing God’s refining on the blog.
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