I do have something to post, however. Last night I finished The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias (finally--I got it for Christmas and started it soon thereafter). Good book. At the end Zacharias answers a number of often-asked questions about God and life. I thought this one was really good.
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How can I see God's pattern in my life unfold, even when I am in pain?
I see three distinct steps to take in order to ascertain God's pattern unfolding in one's life:
Step 1: Allow God to make your heart tender.
Responding appropriately to hurts and disappointments makes one sensitive to God's personal interaction . God uses your hurts and disappointments to shape your heart and the way you feel about reality. The hurts you life through also shape you; there is no way around it. At the end of your life, your heart will either have become coarse and desensitized, have been crushed under the weight of disappointments, or have been made tender by that which makes the heart of God tender.
Step 2: Make your mind strong through faith.
Learn to trust in God' s control and depend on His providence. Acting out such a faith helps avoid tension with respect to God's purpose. Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness and drown in its rushing currents. God has made it imperative, in the design of life, to be willing to trust beyond yourself. Walking by faith means to follow Someone else who knows more than you do, Someone who is not only all-powerful but good.
Step 3: See the world through the lens of Jesus' sacrifice.
Fix your tender heart and your faithful mind on the cross of Jesus, and through it, see the world according to God's pattern. You must learn to see the world of pain through the eyes of the One who best understands it, not merely as pain but as brokenness and separation. God shows us through His love, demonstrated at the cross, that He alone bridged the distance between Him and us. That's how God enables us to see this world through Calvary. If you don't see it this way, you will never see it God's way and the threads of the masterpiece He is weaving of your life will always pull away from the design.
2 comments:
Good stuff... Very challenging too, especially the first step.
It's easy or tempting to want to run away from pain when one has experienced it for a good portion of life. :/
But oh! that God would make me tender!
I was blessed by that that little section from your book! Thanks.
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