I have been hearing from several facebook friends who are going through "Job" like trials. They are sad and some even depressed because of their suffering whether emotional or physical.
May I remind you that emotions are not who you are, they are merely stimuli of the flesh responding to the trials. The real us is on the inside, the Spirit lives in us, He sustains us through the trials.
Ignore your emotions to embrace Christ in truth. Christ will go through with you even when He does not bail you out immediately. Suffering grows us, strengthens us and brings a deeper walk if we accept it and trust Christ through it.
Remember the three Hebrew young men who were thrown into the furnace for refusing to bow to the god Baal. They were walking around in the fire untouched by it. They didn't even smell like smoke when they walked out. However, there was another person in that fire with them, it was Christ, the Son of God.
When we know the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego we understand that we go through trials and fires with our culture, our families and our flesh, but Christ is with us through it all.
Deuteronomy 31:6 "6 Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid or terrified of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”"
Courage is not the absence of fear or emotion, it is obeying God in spite of our fear and our emotions.
Do not lean into the emotions our flesh is producing, lean into Christ and His truth. This will keep us from acting in ways that do not please God in the middle of our trials.
Remember too that soon all this misery will be over, look not to the moment now but to the healing that is coming when we leave this mess to go home.
Proverbs 28:26
"Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered."
Proverbs 29:11
"A fool gives full vent to his spirit (emotions and feelings), but a wise man quietly holds it back."
I am convinced that the verse in Proverbs 29 is telling us to ignore our feelings and emotions to follow truth, this means we must think clearly with our minds as we disregard our feelings.
It is a difficult thing to do in a culture that has been trained to do everything according to their feelings. But with Christ we have the strength if we choose to obey God.
Proverbs 3:5-6
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."
May all those going through trials learn to count it all joy to suffer for Christ, may we all give God the glory in the midst of everything.
James 1:2-8
"2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
Do not worry about working up faith, we cannot do it. Just believe, speak it boldly and let the Lord work it in us. The more steps we take in obedience to truth the greater we build our faith. Its the steps of faith even when we see no miracles that build our endurance.
Obeying without seeing is great faith. Even if we see no results we obey anyway.
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