HEAVENSREEF

Are you going through something really hard right now? It could be a diagnosis, a financial hardship, a relationship gone, or a suffering of the soul.

When our lives get hard and overwhelming we should stop……take a breath and look to our gracious LORD. I’ve taken a serious look at what is happening in my life recently……since cancer. And I realized that GOD has taken a lot from me in the past 4 years and somehow I am still standing. I see the look in people’s eyes when I tell them that cancer has visited our house, twice! I’m pretty sure they are thinking: glad that isn’t me. Both my husband and I are diagnosed with it and you wonder LORD, really? This? But I understand that GOD is doing within me something that would not have changed had the cancer not visited us. Cancer is like a visitor that never leaves. And so I have come to understand this:

GOD REMOVES FROM US WHAT WE CANNOT TAKE WITH US WHERE WE ARE GOING.

People think when they are going through hard times that GOD is punishing them, but when you abide closely with HIM, you understand that HE doesn’t allow anything that ultimately is not for your own good. So hardships, being broken and overwhelmed with life is just another way HIS grace comes to us, not to hurt us, but to rebuild us and to restore us.

JOHN 1: 16 “FOR FROM HIS FULLNESS WE HAVE ALL RECEIVED GRACE UPON GRACE.”

The good and the bad is all HIS grace my friends! Why some people have a harder life than others is beyond me to give an answer. No, that is GOD’S plan for each one of us individually. Let’s think on this……when has your greatest spiritual growth happened? Was it when life was easy and going just the way you wanted or when life fell apart and you had only one place to turn? And then, who did you turn to? Who was there waiting for you with HIS gracious right hand held out to pick you up?

Let’s remember today what JAMES tells us and let’s look at it differently……

JAMES 1: 2 “COUNT IT ALL JOY, MY BROTHERS, WHEN YOU MEET TRIALS OF VARIOUS KINDS, FOR YOU KNOW THAT THE TESTING OF YOUR FAITH PRODUCES STEADFASTNESS…….”

The trials GOD allows in our lives are different from the consequences HE provides due to continual sin. We can become confident in our trials because GOD always has something good waiting at the end of it……..HE renews and restores and rebuilds……..us. Remember I said where we are going, there are many things we cannot take with us? HE desires for us to have a pure and holy heart……..for HIM!

2 TIMOTHY 2: 21 “SO IF ANYONE CLEANSES HIMSELF OF WHAT IS UNFIT, HE WILL BE A VESSEL FOR HONOR: SANCTIFIED, USEFUL TO THE MASTER, AND PREPARED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK.” BSB

While we are here and while we go through trials and tribulations, we are being cleansed for where we are going to be with our SHEPHERD in Heaven. So, if that is what is required of us, why would we not welcome these trials? These trials are tailored made for each of us to do within us what the LORD wants. Let’s surrender today, welcome HIS touch and pity the one who has no trials at all! For HIS gracious HAND in our lives is making us perfect and complete for that day that is to come! Rescue us today LORD…….from ourselves…….. mold us into the people YOU want us to be with pure hearts that love YOU!

JAMES 1: 12 “BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO REMAINS STEADFAST UNDER TRIAL, FOR WHEN HE HAS STOOD THE TEST HE WILL RECEIVE THE CROWN OF LIFE, WHICH GOD HAS PROMISED TO THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”