Psalm 66:10-14 (KJV) “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble”.
You’ve faced a pretty uneventful life and one day decide to give your life to Jesus and at your baptism you become so overwhelmed with grace you think at that point you can die and go to heaven. Yes, this is what saving your life is all about; then you really start to get into the bible and realize that all those people in the NT, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Peter, etc. they were in warfare. They had big mouths for the most part, and had indomitable spirits, but they took a beating.
Realization of discipleship is when you go from a mundane existence and your nonchalant lifestyle turns around, you make changes you would never in a million years do on your own initiative. You go through many things that confuses you, but at some level you realize that you being taken through the fire. You are tormented at a level which might have left you putting out a restraining order on the angel responsible, but how do you fight in the invisible? You are not that mature spiritually.
So you just endure until it is time to be released; then when you think it is going on for eternity and you wait for death, because no one on earth can go through these things without death coming to claim them: you awake one day and a new day has dawn, things negative, bad and bone destroying have faded away. Positive realization have taken their place; you now can smile inside and out when people are perplexed about what you are going through, but somehow you know you have been taken into a different realm, a different season, a different anointing has rested upon you; there is increased grace.
To God be the glory who just took you through a raging storm and you did not faint. How are you dealing with your storm today? Will you sink like Peter who tried to walk on the water, or will you ride out the storm with Jesus holding your hands?
Trivia: This dude is a riot; he told God, “you tricked me: you are only winning this fight because you are bigger than I am”.
vwoods1212 