It is really exciting when you know God has spoken into your life and given you promises and when He is bringing you up higher to a new level in your walk with Him. But the reality is, in order to see those promises, come to pass and to come up higher with Him, you have to go through some things you would sometimes rather not go through. In this process, this is where we learn to mature and grow up in Christ. The purpose is to either take something out of us that He doesn’t like, to put something in us that we need, or sometimes just to make us grow in Him so that we are able to handle the promises He has given us.
God gave me the Scripture in Joshua 3:3-4 … “And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. 4 Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.”
He was telling me He was going to do a new thing in my life and that I needed to follow Him, obeying what He wanted me to do. After walking with God for a few years I know when He gives me a Scripture, it isn’t just so I can learn another Scripture. I used to get so excited when He would show me something new in His Word, but it didn’t take me long to realized He wasn’t telling me just for the pure enjoyment of it. It usually meant He was using that Scripture to tell me He was going to take me through something or teach me something.
God goes with us, we are not alone, but that doesn’t mean we will always feel and know His Presence, and sometimes you have to become determined to go through something hard in order to get where He wants to take you. In the middle of the test, the teacher doesn’t give us the answer. We don’t always know what the test is for or why we are going through it. Our attitudes though can make a difference in how fast and how successful we go through the test.
If you have ever studied the attitudes that the children of Israel had when coming out of Egypt, you will understand that they are examples of the attitudes we possess even today. It is amazing how many of those mentalities still apply today, everything from grumbling and complaining to being ungrateful for what we do have. One of my “wilderness mentalities” is that I’d like everything to be easy. Walking through the desert for 40 years would not be my idea of fun even if God was with me. I’m not an outdoors type of gal and I don’t like heat…or cold and I don’t like learning new things usually…and I’m usually geared more towards negativity.
In this “walk” with God, He has been very lenient with me sometimes because of all I have gone through. He doesn’t make you learn everything at once so while I was learning some things, He shielded me in other areas. But at some point, we have to grow up, let go of the hold on our life and how we want things to be so that we can come to the place where we realize that if we really want to see what God has for us, we need to let Jesus have His way in us.
When we stop grumbling and complaining because things in my life are too complicated and things aren’t happening the way we want them to, when we really want what God has for us, that is when He is able to start blessing us in ways we cannot begin to think or imagine. Sooner or later I /we will have to deal with things in us that God wants to change in us, take out of us or even put in us.
God gives us the strength to go through the desert. And if we remind ourselves what is on the other side, we may find we can get through these trials much faster and sometimes circumvent having to go through things we wouldn’t have to go through if we would have allowed God to work in us in the first place. Growing up isn’t always easy, becoming responsible is sometimes even less appealing, but God will not put us in a position where we cannot responsibly handle what He has for us. Let go and let God…” that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.”
