Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer – Rom 12:12
I felt encouraged today by this verse. I think that Paul really knew what he is talking about as he himself experienced life in its fullness. I think that I have learned that living life in its fullness do not always mean that you have made it in a material sense but to carry on despite the circumstances, to truly grab onto hope as I believe that God’s thoughts towards me is to have a great future – i.e. teaching me through living life to have compassion, to love my husband for his moral soul and godly principles and to encourage my children to excel as I believe that God has a plan for all of us. It occurred to me that God allow things to happen, so that our test can be turned into a testimony, so that God can get the glory.
Knowing then that God has a plan for me, I exercise myself in prayer, and when praying, I strive to have conversations with God not because I need Him to deliver me from my circumstance but to have a better understanding, through prayer, about what God’s heart is for me and this world. For sometimes, we do get delivered from circumstance instead, God gives us testimonies that exalts God through telling His story in our lives and thereby spread more hope.
We so easily sings “take me where my feet can’t touch the ocean floor’’, but when He does, then we sink because we were not patient during affliction to learn the lessons to equip us to go deeper trusting upon Him in all our ways. We stay in the shallows of the ocean where the waves easily batters us like small children, so that it feels you just can’t take a breath before you gurgle on the next mouthful of salty water.
The verse in Matthew 5 came to mind and it says “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Verse 14 says “you are the light of the world…”
This is just another way to express how God is shaping and moulding us to become more like Him so that we can shine for Him in the midst of the darkness in our world.
Since God wants to shine His light through the lives of believers, despite what challenges we go through, I admonish you therefore to be still before God. Be of good courage and cheer because God is still your Father who wants to speak to you, who wants to pick you up from the shallows and take you in His arms to lead you to higher ground or deeper waters where you can have meaningful conversations with Him.