White Knuckling It?

Good Morning!

And you shall (earnestly) remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to prove you, to know what was in your (mind and) heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. Deuteronomy 8:2

Through my mornings of devotions, I have lots of options on where to focus. I had a thought this morning to read a bit from my On Fire Faith emails from the past.

Back in 2015, I started my email with that verse from Deuteronomy. Before that time, the only real experience I had with “the wilderness” was that I had allowed myself to be distracted by life so much so that I threw only occasional prayers heavenward and went to church on Sundays. That is a form of wilderness because it is not focused on the right thing and there is a gap in communication with our source of Life.

I think it was in 2014 that I decided to make God my PUSH goal. A PUSH goal was a concept that I had heard in a business talk and signifies “the one goal on your list that if achieved would make all of the others possible.”

I knew the PUSH goal was business oriented and not trying to focus me on God but it was undeniable to me that I needed to make God my PUSH goal. There was nothing else I could think of that would make everything else possible.

From that moment on, my intentional God time turned into the start of On Fire Fit and even though I’ve gone through more “wilderness” time, I can say with confidence that the time in the wilderness is absolutely amazing when you are choosing to seek God and not what the world would tell you can help you get through (food/alcohol/other people/busy schedules, etc).

No one wants to go through the wilderness but I know this for a fact: No one grows when they are obliviously living a reckless life. No one grows when the wilderness does nothing more than frustrate them until finally, they get out of it.

No. During the wilderness times, this is what God says:

(1)it humbles you

(2)it proves you

(3)it shows what is in your mind and heart

If we don’t choose God and let Him use those times to build us and grow us, then we will go from one wilderness to the next simply white knuckling it. What a rotten way to live.

If we dive in with God, choose Him when it’s hard, then the wilderness doesn’t become something we dread but we learn to trust what He is doing.

“If we are faithless, He will remain faithful.” 2 Timothy 2:13

That is the good news, while we are trying and sometimes failing, He is always going to remain faithful. AND He who has begun a good work in you will bring in through to completion to the day of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

jennie