For the next few weeks I thought I’d focus on encouraging those of us (me included!) that are going through a tough trial. As we all know, life brings us trials and difficulties that ultimately build our faith as we grow closer in our walk with God. Over the past 3 years now, my family and I have experienced a season of difficult circumstances that has tested our resolve. It has brought us to our knees at times and caused a lot of pain and frustration. But as we catch glimpses of the finish line and the end of this season, we value the precious gems that we have found in this desert place. It has cultivated a love for God that we hadn’t had before. It has also caused us to grow closer as a family causing all of us to become better believers. There are so many connections that I can make from our journey but I’m going to focus on just four lessons that we’ve learned through this time period. The first lesson is: learn to ultimately depend on God.
Recently I finished up reading The Dreamgiver by Bruce Wilkinson. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is facing difficult times while pursuing God faithfully. Without going into great detail though, the book’s premise is about “Ordinary” that ventures out from his place of familiar in search of his big dream. He encounters much opposition to his dream, but enduring the process gives him the tools necessary to pursue and eventually accomplish his big dream. One of those opposing forces happens to be the “wasteland”. In the wasteland the Dreamgiver seems so far away from Ordinary. When he runs out of resources he questions the validity of his big dream. Ultimately he learns that the Dreamgiver who has given him the dream has also supplied him with everything that he will ever need to accomplish his big dream along the way. I think we can all relate to this story because we have all been given something to do by God—no matter how insignificant you may think it is. In God’s eyes, our purpose began before we took our first breath of air. (See Jeremiah 1:5) This means that that every step we take in life is already known by God and he has accounted for all the difficulties included on our “faith” journey. Although we may be surprised when we are unexpectedly laid off from our job—he’s not. The difficulty that circumstance might bring is there to test you and equip for your special task in the kingdom. From my experience, I believe situations like those come to test our level of dependence on God. For example, I found it much easier to trust God with several thousand dollars in the bank account and consistent employment than to have to wait on him for the next source of resource. God uses all types of ways to get his abundant supply of resources to us. It may be through a job, or through the body of Christ, or a friend or family member that knows your struggle and just wants to help. Of course it takes us being a little more transparent and letting people know what we are facing, but in the end God gets the glory. I’ve found that when I received help from an individual in the body of Christ, that they were being blessed by helping me. God was cultivating in them a spirit of giving and graciousness that allowed them to empathize with my situation. This is a beautiful thing because it demonstrates the love of Christ. In the beginning it was hard for me to accept, because I had always been the person able to help someone in need. Then I became that person in need. My pride had to submit to that process and it hurt. But what God was steadily showing me is that my dependence had been in the resource he’d blessed me to obtain and not in the giver of the blessing. In The Dream Giver, Ordinary is challenged by the Dreamgiver to surrender his dream in order to grow closer to the Dreamgiver. Ordinary first hesitates on giving his dream back, but then realizes that pleasing the Dreamgiver is the ultimate pleasure—not the dream itself. When we understand that God takes us through difficult times in our lives to bring us closer in relationship with him, we will stop resisting the process. This process builds in us a dependence on God that isn’t shaken by any circumstance that we encounter. His plan is to teach us this so that we faithfully follow him wherever our dream may take us. Ultimately, this equips us as better servants for his kingdom work. When our difficult season has passed, and we are able to see onto the horizon of our dream, we finally realize that he has developed within us an ultimate dependence on him.