Over 43 years you are bound to run into trials of various forms. We all start our young adult lives with visions of what it should be, will be, and you want it to be.
More often than not life in no way will be as you expected. The Lord is trying to conform you to his image, and lead you down a path that will forever make Him dear to you. Sometimes that form takes you on trials you in no way want or anticipate.
As humans we get in ruts, we go to far, we are not balanced. If shown a truth we run with it, add to it, stay in one place with it, etc. We read every book we can find on this particular truth. We associate with every pastor and brethren that believes as we do. We shut out everything and everyone else for fear of disrupting our way of life as we see it. The Lord allows this for a time. Then the Lord will allow the trials. These trials are so we are clinging to Him instead of all we thought was truth. Not that it was not a truth, but we cannot get beyond it. We base our whole lives on it and what we have added to it. It has become our security and not the Lord. He starts the process of sorting the truth from fiction in our minds.
A few years back I was given a book. It has been a life saver when in a trial. The name of the book is called "Deserts of the Heart," by Pamela Reeve" It goes straight to the heart of how it feels dealing with these trials, the way and the outcome of them.
Deserts of the Heart pg 17
For most of us, life holds a few desert stretches along the way--some short, some long. For others, the dry land stretch on and on for countless, stumbling miles. Some deserts are forced upon us; some come of our own making. The desert speaks of barrenness, helplessness, and aching loneliness. It is a place of changeless deadness as far as the eye can see. It is a place where you travel on and on with neither landmark, nor destination--and often no sign of God
There are many such deserts in life, places where the very things that gave life meaning and direction have disappeared under shifting, blowing sand. And one of these situations can produce such desolate seasons:
A drastic change in family circumstances
A deep relationship severed....
An unwanted role imposed...
A debilitating illness
An awareness of fading abilities
A move into a strange new culture
A life plan shattered
An unyielding spiritual drought
A lingering dispute with one you had called "friend"
A sad, hopeless mood that won't let go
The Lord Lord has deep purposes in all such experiences, never doubt it!
Rom 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom 8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The desert is the place where He woos us to Himself. "I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her" Hosea 2:14 There he shows us His deep, personal love.
There is hope in Him and Him only. No system, method, person, place or thing. His love is unending and he blesses us in our personal trials.
Nina
