the furnace

Jn.6:13, "So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten."

This is our God. He multiplies little into abundant suffiscience when He is in it.

If you choose the hard path - like Larissa marrying brain-injured Ian, or someone adopting a disabled child - you are choosing for God to increase the heat in the furnace of your life, the means by which our gold is purified of its dross on the way to Heaven.

I know the end is good. I know that having dreams stripped away in order to gain the greater joy of God Himself, is not a loss, not a poor trade. Indeed he is a fool who cannot loose his grasp on all his possessions in order to gain that Pearl of great value instead. Only a fool gains the world at the cost of losing his soul.

My flesh still recoils.  It must be faith alone that willingly chooses the furnace, if God will be glorified in it.

Nothing too difficult for the LORD!

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

(Jeremiah 32:27. Luke 1:37. Matthew 7:7-11. Luke 11:13. Romans 8:26-32)

Always giving thanks

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

"Open your mouth, and I will fill it!"

Psalm 81

God says to Israel - and to us -
"Come to me. Serve me only. I will satisfy your deepest needs with myself. Ask for what you need. Depend on me for it. And I will provide!"

But we choose to go our own way, to hold to our sin, to think that serving God is a slavery and that  serving ourselves will be freedom.

How backwards our sin-corrupted natures perceive reality! For in truth it is God who frees us from our slavery, who gives us in its place his own sweet service, where we find him meeting every need, abundantly!

If God is for me...

Genesis 37 - Joseph is sold into Egypt, presumed dead by Jacob.  Jacob would perceive that "all these things are against me" (Gen.42:36). In reality, God was preparing for him a feast in the wilderness, a treasure only possible through a long incubation period of time.  God was for him, so nothing could truly be against him.

Can we not trust the God who orchestrated Jacob's and Joseph's lives, to orchestrate ours also? If I am His, then He is for me, and He turns everything that would be against me into something that is for me (Rom.8:31). Trust God in the dark, when you cannot see His hand, when you do not understand. He will not let you go. He is using your trial to make something beautiful.

Not to fix, but to be faithful

God has not called me to fix things (my life, or my child), but to be faithful.
We must preach, but only He can save.
We plant and water, but He must make it grow.

Only He can fix the brokenness in my life.  The means He uses might well be my faithfulness in it, but the results are His domain, not mine.

I will always be discouraged if I am feeling responsibility for that which only God can do.

"What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." (1Corinthians 3:5-7)

Help for the discouraged

Psalm 77 (excerpt)

    In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
        in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
        my soul refuses to be comforted...
    You hold my eyelids open;
        I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
    I consider the days of old,
        the years long ago...
        Then my spirit made a diligent search:
    “Will the Lord spurn forever,
        and never again be favorable?
    Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
        Are his promises at an end for all time?
    Has God forgotten to be gracious?
        Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”...
    I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
        yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
    I will ponder all your work,
        and meditate on your mighty deeds.
    Your way, O God, is holy.
        What god is great like our God?
    You are the God who works wonders;
        you have made known your might among the peoples.
    You with your arm redeemed your people,
        the children of Jacob and Joseph...
    The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
        your lightnings lighted up the world;
        the earth trembled and shook.
    Your way was through the sea,
        your path through the great waters;
        yet your footprints were unseen.
    You led your people like a flock
        by the hand of Moses and Aaron.


Here is someone in trials. They are troubled.  They seek God but do not see him answer.  They have prayed and prayed, but nothing seems to change.  They question whether perhaps for them, in their situation, God no longer is gracious, loving, or compassionate. God's promises do not apply to them here.

Their answer is
- to remember the LORD's character.  To ask the question is to answer it: if my God is God, he cannot cease to be who He is: loving, gracious, compassionate, faithful to His promises.

- to remember the LORD's deeds and wonders in the past.  His deeds remind the psalmist of God's holiness and might. Of His control over nature and weather.  Of His redeeming of an unworthy people and His dealings with them through the years in grace and mercy.  And of the fact that God's ways often cannot be detected; His "footprints were unseen".  Yet He is acting, even if we cannot see it or do not understand.

This is our answer in despair and depression: turn your mind to think about God's character.  If he has changed, then he is no longer God.  Therefore we can affirm that God is who He says He is, even if we do not feel it, even if our circumstances make us wonder. Our faith is not to rest on our feelings, but on the Word of God and who it reveals God to be.  God cannot change!  He will always be faithful and gracious to His people.

And we can focus our mind on what God has done in the past.  He is "the God who works wonders"! We can look at His faithfulness to people in the Bible, to His people in modern times, and to us personally.  We cannot discern the future, and sometimes in the present we do not see how God is working graciously.  But we can remember what He has done already, and be comforted that He has shown His faithfulness through many trials in the past.  He will prove faithful now and in the future as well!