I Didn’t Know

When He came walking into my life on the seawall at the steel mill, I didn’t know it would be a lifetime. I was a mess at the time and spent the following years learning what had happened on that day. I was plucked out of a slave market of sin, but not yet did I experience this. Yes, the cleanup had begun and still continues., but, how does it work? First lets consider Paul’s thought:

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Philippians 1:6

The Day of Christ’ coming remains future. The begun work, the one inside my soul, has never stopped. It goes on, a work of change — of transformation, if you will. It begins with doctrine, a Bible word which means and teaches us “how to think with God. Significant, for I’d only known prior how to think with Tom. “Me, myself and I” was the whole of it.

A few things characterized the new thinking which were quite different. I noticed right away there were many positive and encouraging thoughts. Quite different from Tom’s stuff.

The metamorphosis of the worm/butterfly, illustrates the process as well. In a nut shell, worm must die and butterfly be born. The lingering human condition resists this dying constantly, creating a dilemma. Our God must sometimes use drastic measures to break the stubborn man’s heart. These measures include firey trials see 1Peter 4:12 

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.”

My life is a testimony to these heart wrenches, and 29 years in, I was burnt beyond repair. Losing my young son to cancer, I felt life had lost its meaning. Indeed it had. Crawling up into my cocoon, life as always, had halted. I died too, not just Joshua, and I remained in that grave 2 years minimum.

Then came resurrection. I had heard of it, even the prospect of it happening to me, but it was only words. God wished it to happen for my real life experience. It came.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 2Corinthians 4:17 

We get a weight of glory added to us but 1Peter 1:6 explains,   “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” Beloved, yes we may be in heaviness at times as God’s predestined boundaries limit, resist, and file away the hindering flesh of our old sin nature.

Friends, none of us enjoy pain, but God sees the work of making us like Christ of extreme value. Suffering exemplifies the Christian life. Becoming a butterfly, so to speak, is God’s gift to us.

So, some how-to’s,

1Peter 1:13  “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” And   “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.” 1Peter 4:19 and “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” 1Peter 4:1 

Lastly, 1Corinthians 10:13 teaches, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

Beloved, everything, small and great, enjoyable or painful, comes from the hand of God. The meek deem it all of value, Friends, remember this, “he will never leave you nor forsake you,” Hebrews 13:5 love ya