Walking through

Battles. Challenges. Hardships. Trials.

We all have them.

Some of them linger and go on for years.

Perhaps it's a marriage, perhaps it's a home yet unfinished, a lack of patience, a temper you keep trying to master but somehow it gets away from you, lack of finances, a child that's ill, the loss of a job, friendships that have ended, family feuds. Perhaps it's wanting to be content but just not getting there, or maybe because it's just never enough. Maybe it's the mundanness of everyday things.

Life as it is right now.

Trials.

They're difficult to endure.

I don't like them.

And I've generally tried to pray them away.

Tried not to think about it too much. Not talk about it too much. Not look at it so much.

Or just hold my breath...until it's over. If it's ever over.

I've struggled through.

 

The Scripture, James 1:2-4, is one I find a comfort and strength in times of trial, but I've struggled with the part which says "Consider it all joy".

"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

Desert experiences aren't made to be pleasant. They're filled with challenge, discomfort, pain. But there's something about being in the desert that the Lord finds of use. For His glory and purpose.

1 Peter 1:6-7
"In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Trials. A time of refining.

Until I see Me reflected in you

Until I see Me reflected in you

Until I see Me reflected in you

The truth is there's always going to be a trial.

And sometimes it feels like you've come out of one and go straight back into another one.

So instead of praying it away, I want to start praying that God will make me strong. I want to pray that He will equip me for the day that will be difficult; the day that will bring me to my knees. I want to learn to lean into the refining fire because I want to be changed.

I want to be all He sees in me to be.

Knowing He loves me. Knowing He has a purpose. Knowing He has a plan.

And then I'll be able to count it all joy.