And so here’s the deal.
I know we are all dealing with stuff.
It’s been a ridiculously challenging year.
But I would whisper it to my soul at the same time I have said the words out loud to anyone who will listen, “We’ve GOT to do better.”
And I would read the words that would cause a shift… a stirring… in my spirit on a brisk fall morning in November.
The words were these, “Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come to answer your prayer.” (Dan 10:12)
The words stopped me in my tracks.
Because haven’t we, like Daniel, been in a season of fear? And panic? Haven’t we, like Daniel, felt the loneliness of isolation and defeat? Haven’t we, from time to time, wondered where God is and why he seems to be far away?
And yet hadn’t I just read it somewhere - something about redeeming the time?
Ahh… yes… Ephesians 5:16. We are to be people who are, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
And perhaps here the angelic voice speaking to Daniel was serving as a reminder that God had not left, had not abandoned, and was still overseeing all.
And then the thought came to me.
Because 2020 has felt like a challenge, a difficulty…. a trial.
Yes! That’s it!
A trial!
A look at the very word means this = “the act of trying, testing, or putting to the proof.”
Oh boy, and hasn’t that been true?
The year has been for the trying, testing, and putting to the proof.
But the trying and testing of what? For what reason?
And on a Wednesday morning I see it!
A trying and a testing and a proving of all I am learning.
Because if what I am taking in by daily study of His Word and His ways doesn’t change who I am becoming, is it really serving it’s purpose at all?
I can learn about forgiveness and yet never experience it by the need to show grace to someone I’d rather stay bitter toward.
I can learn about showing honor to those in leadership and yet never participate in it by demonstrating proper esteem for those in power and control who would be much easier to despise and dismiss.
I can learn about loving my neighbor as myself and yet still wrestle daily with self-love that denies me the ability to love like Jesus.
And so I see it now, that answers… relief, really… often come(s) through trials of our faith and in seasons of exercised patience.
When God tries us or tests us, it’s so that we can not only employ those virtues we’ve been learning about, but also so that the value of them in our lives may be increased, multiplied, and strengthened.
It’s a proving to be improved.
We are proved so that every bit of virtue in us will be improved.
God, thank You for the proving. While sometimes uncomfortable, it is always… always profitable.
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