Disappointed Part 2

Trials and difficulties give us opportunities for faith or fizzle.

In my last post I admitted to a season of disappointment.

Let me clarify:  God does not disappoint. But I believe He is ok with us being disappointed.

God is consistently good.  God is always at work to produce fruit in our lives.

Allowing us to face difficulties, some of them lasting for years, has a way of producing such richness in us that God knows the pain and disappointment will be worth the outcome.

I believe God is good with that.

I always go back to Job.

How can we not?

The illustration is just too easy.

Job was hand-picked by God Almighty to experience pain, loss, grief and terrible disappointment.

God is about the process and proving Himself and us to be genuine.

He knows His own character.

He wants us to know it.  REALLY know Him.

Have you noticed that joy is sweeter after grief?

Grief is actually the catalyst that helps us really grasp joy.

A life without pain can't even really experience the depth of joy.

Y'all....God is all about depth.

Depth takes time.

"God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." Ecc. 3:11

Whatever time God has appointed for your life right now...it is a beautiful for its own time.

It is accomplishing a purpose.

This disappointment can be a beautiful thing if I continue to allow it to accomplish its work.

My pride and ego hate this.

I want to work harder.
Do more.
Pray more.
Sing louder.
Do something to make it about my good works....somehow prove myself to God.

That is my default.

All the while God is trying to help me stop striving. Just sit tight.  Listen and stay close to Me.

That is all.

To the multi-tasking OCD girl that I have become...this method is offensive to me.

"What do you mean slow down? Rest? Listen?"

"How is that doing  anything?"

Here is the gist:  in all of my striving I am really doing nothing. 

But in my resting...He IS DOING EVERYTHING.