going home

Qt sharing: 8th Jan

"BUt this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.."2corinthians 1:9

What purpose does God have in allowing his children to enter a wilderness experience?Throughout the church's history writers and observers who have made a special study of this strange phenomenon-the wilderness experience-are generally agreed and divided into 7 types.

1) Humiliation-a savage and plausible attack upon one's reputation in which lies are told and imputations made that sear the soul.

2) Suffering-physical,mental and spiritual,prolonged and undeserved.

3) Bereavement-those who are young and whose deaths appear to be most untimely.

4) Estrangement- the distance that comes through the breaking of close relationships with one's family and friends.

5) Doubt-where some have to pass and where faith often lies torn and bleeding.

6)Dereliction-the awlful sense of being forsaken by God.

7)Failure-perhaps even the failure of one's life's work.

These 7 experiences form the fiercest test of life,and there can be little doubt that they are the hardest things which mortal men and women are called upon to bear.We shall never fully understand on earth the full purpose of this type of testing,but even on earth we can understand that a purpose lies behind it.Trusting that purpose is not easy,but it is what every child of God is called to do.

Prayer: O Father,whatever tests you subject me to,help me never to let go in the darkness of what i have discovered in the light.May my trust always be in you.In Christ's Name I ask,Amen.

Quoted from the book:
Strong at the broken places

written on
11:29 AM