When God created the world and all that's in it, He created man with free will but He wrote His word upon the hearts of men that we may know Him if we seek Him. Jesus never knocked and asked for entry, He was always sought and given a seat at one's table. The same thing applies in our lives today. Same concepts. We still have free will, we can still know Him if we seek Him, and He still doesn't force His way in.
My friend and I were discussing someone she knows who has been saved but seems to be enduring the "trials and tribulations" the Lord warned us of. My friend felt that she had the answer to what ails the young woman and her opinion was that the young woman just needed to get in church and be with other believers. I agree that she needs to surround herself with believers but I didn't agree that she'd necessarily find peace or resolve in church attendance. After I stated my opinion, I questioned myself, 'why would I think that?' God told me why, shortly after our conversation had ended.
God opened my memory for a while and allowed the things I did, places I went, and people I hung around to flood my mind. I remembered meeting Christ as a child and growing up with sparse interactions with Him. Mostly, I'd be forced to go to church when I stayed the night with a friend whose parents were church goers and those were the house rules. The thing God wanted me to see the most was that I wasn't meant to get saved and stick to His side like a scared untrusting child. I was meant to live my life.
Once I was the Lord's, "nothing could pluck me from His hand" and my time to wander into the world and make my mistakes was upon me. The entire point of knowing God but having an earthly existence is to live, learn, and make mistakes so that you learn to build your faith...to lean on God.
I myself ventured out and lived in the "hog pens" of the world. When God called me back for restoration (like the prodigal son), He found me chin-deep in the hog pens. What that meant for others around me who would be struggling the same as I had was a testimony of miraculous change for which they could rely on as a God-given truth, an encouraging word to let them know there's hope, the realization that God never leaves us, nor does He refuse to forgive. I was meant to acquire my testimony so that I could share it for good reason at the right time, just like I heard someone share their's for good reason and at the right time for me.
My friend and I talked a bit and I told her all of this, to which she listened attentively and thoughtfully. We changed the subject thereafter but I knew my friend understood that her friend would have to venture into the world, fall into a few hog pens, get very dirty, but once God's plans for her life had been accomplished in that, He would reach in and pull her from the pit, clean her up, and set her before others to share of the miraculous things He had done for her. Possibly at a time when she thought she was unforgivable.
We have to let one another make mistakes. We have to trust that God is building the faith of our brothers and sisters through their trials and tribulations and that the motivation should never be us trying to tie them to a church bench and expect that to keep them from suffering. We're meant to suffer with Christ. We're meant to use those times to build our faith in God. We're meant to find, through our trials, that God never left us nor forsook us and that He forgives His foolish children, like any good parent would.
My friend and I were discussing someone she knows who has been saved but seems to be enduring the "trials and tribulations" the Lord warned us of. My friend felt that she had the answer to what ails the young woman and her opinion was that the young woman just needed to get in church and be with other believers. I agree that she needs to surround herself with believers but I didn't agree that she'd necessarily find peace or resolve in church attendance. After I stated my opinion, I questioned myself, 'why would I think that?' God told me why, shortly after our conversation had ended.
God opened my memory for a while and allowed the things I did, places I went, and people I hung around to flood my mind. I remembered meeting Christ as a child and growing up with sparse interactions with Him. Mostly, I'd be forced to go to church when I stayed the night with a friend whose parents were church goers and those were the house rules. The thing God wanted me to see the most was that I wasn't meant to get saved and stick to His side like a scared untrusting child. I was meant to live my life.
Once I was the Lord's, "nothing could pluck me from His hand" and my time to wander into the world and make my mistakes was upon me. The entire point of knowing God but having an earthly existence is to live, learn, and make mistakes so that you learn to build your faith...to lean on God.
I myself ventured out and lived in the "hog pens" of the world. When God called me back for restoration (like the prodigal son), He found me chin-deep in the hog pens. What that meant for others around me who would be struggling the same as I had was a testimony of miraculous change for which they could rely on as a God-given truth, an encouraging word to let them know there's hope, the realization that God never leaves us, nor does He refuse to forgive. I was meant to acquire my testimony so that I could share it for good reason at the right time, just like I heard someone share their's for good reason and at the right time for me.
My friend and I talked a bit and I told her all of this, to which she listened attentively and thoughtfully. We changed the subject thereafter but I knew my friend understood that her friend would have to venture into the world, fall into a few hog pens, get very dirty, but once God's plans for her life had been accomplished in that, He would reach in and pull her from the pit, clean her up, and set her before others to share of the miraculous things He had done for her. Possibly at a time when she thought she was unforgivable.
We have to let one another make mistakes. We have to trust that God is building the faith of our brothers and sisters through their trials and tribulations and that the motivation should never be us trying to tie them to a church bench and expect that to keep them from suffering. We're meant to suffer with Christ. We're meant to use those times to build our faith in God. We're meant to find, through our trials, that God never left us nor forsook us and that He forgives His foolish children, like any good parent would.
