Smooth Sailing

I'll take a brief break from commenting on this past retreat to share a little bit from today's selection from Spurgeon's "Morning By Morning." The key verse is Jeremiah 42:17: "Thou art my hope in the day of evil." He talks about struggling through the dark moments of life. "At certain periods, clouds cover the believer's sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light... No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity..." We know that all believers will go through trials. God uses them to test us and refine us - to make us more like Himself. He uses them so we would exercise our faith and trust in Him - to lean on Him. He provides for us the trial, and He also provides us with the means to go through them.

This last quote got me: "Perhaps the Lord allotted you a smooth and unclouded path at first because you were weak and timid. Now that you are stronger in the spiritual life you must enter on the rougher experience of God's full-grown children." Wow. Maybe our paths haven't been that rough at all. Maybe it's been smooth sailing. And now maybe God is taking you through a trial that's difficult - maybe seemingly impossible. Spurgeon says here that maybe you didn't experience those trials in times past because you weren't able to endure it; you were weak and couldn't handle it. But now God has grown you and matured you and now He's ready to take you through it. What's your response gonna be? "Lord, I don't want this"? "Lord take me out of this"? Or, "Lord I'm ready, take me through, cause growth, and use this for your glory"? I pray that it's the latter.

And this post isn't just for you, the reader; it's especially for me, the writer. Lord, thou art my hope.