For many of us it can feel as though we are alone on this journey called life, as if we are the only ones experiencing trials and fears. Yet challenging moments at times is in fact just a test of our faith. So, even as Abraham, “Gods friend” as James would call him, had his faith tested time and time again, so shall we.
Being raised in dysfunctional Christian home made for a very confusing childhood. I was being taught biblical principles and about the love of Jesus Christ, yet just the opposite behavior was being displayed to me. As a result, much like Abraham pre-salvation I was passive, timid and fearful. Yet the transformation is only the result of enduring a lot of pain and hard work.
Because of the dysfunction in my home, at the age of eighteen-I left my home and all that it had for me to start a life of my own. I was an eighteen-year old boy with no life skills and no plans on where my life was going. In fact, I probably felt much like Abraham must have felt when God told him to “leave your country, your family, and your fathers house, to a land I shall show you.”
Wandering in the wilderness of the world for thirty-eight years is what God had planned for me in order to give me strengths that would endure the toughest of challenges when his calling came to pass in my life. Today, what were my weaknesses are now my strengths and my greatest sorrow has become my greatest joy.
Life is a journey and we never know what lies ahead of us. I always say that everything that happens to us happens for a reason. That everyone in our life is a teacher and everything that happens to us is a lesson. Spiritual growth happens through hardship. It is when God does his greatest work in me. While God does not want me to suffer, it is only through all the suffering and pain I have endured in my life that I have come to know and grow close to God.
Do you look at your hard times and dark moments as a form of punishment from God or do you see at as a time of spiritual growth. The old cliché – no pain, no gain – also applies to our emotional and spiritual growth. It is in times of my deepest pain that I have grown closer to God.
Either God is everything or God is nothing. He is or He isn’t and there is no “but” if He is. If God is everything, then everything that is happening in your life is exactly as it is supposed to be.
Randy Boyd
#starttheconversation
Being raised in dysfunctional Christian home made for a very confusing childhood. I was being taught biblical principles and about the love of Jesus Christ, yet just the opposite behavior was being displayed to me. As a result, much like Abraham pre-salvation I was passive, timid and fearful. Yet the transformation is only the result of enduring a lot of pain and hard work.
Because of the dysfunction in my home, at the age of eighteen-I left my home and all that it had for me to start a life of my own. I was an eighteen-year old boy with no life skills and no plans on where my life was going. In fact, I probably felt much like Abraham must have felt when God told him to “leave your country, your family, and your fathers house, to a land I shall show you.”
Wandering in the wilderness of the world for thirty-eight years is what God had planned for me in order to give me strengths that would endure the toughest of challenges when his calling came to pass in my life. Today, what were my weaknesses are now my strengths and my greatest sorrow has become my greatest joy.
Life is a journey and we never know what lies ahead of us. I always say that everything that happens to us happens for a reason. That everyone in our life is a teacher and everything that happens to us is a lesson. Spiritual growth happens through hardship. It is when God does his greatest work in me. While God does not want me to suffer, it is only through all the suffering and pain I have endured in my life that I have come to know and grow close to God.
Do you look at your hard times and dark moments as a form of punishment from God or do you see at as a time of spiritual growth. The old cliché – no pain, no gain – also applies to our emotional and spiritual growth. It is in times of my deepest pain that I have grown closer to God.
Either God is everything or God is nothing. He is or He isn’t and there is no “but” if He is. If God is everything, then everything that is happening in your life is exactly as it is supposed to be.
Randy Boyd
#starttheconversation
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