Be patient when troiuble comes,
and pray at all times.
Romans 12:12 NCV
Faith is easy in the daylight. The challenge is when faith is tested. In the dark. When you can't see the way. When you have difficult and distasteful tasks. It seems to me the more I stand and say "This is the way I should live" then that is the very thing that is challenged.
I know very much that there is a spiritual warfare going on. C.S. Lewis wrote brilliantly about this in The Screwtape Letters. I shall make that my next reading assignment. I have only read excerpts.
So when you are in warfare, it is imperative that you know your enemy's tactics. One tactic is to discourage me from reaching my potential. For then I will not be potent. A quote from "Stand Against the Wind" by Erwin MacManus:
God desires for us to become faithful, trustworthy people. Perseverance is the ability to remain faithful for the duration.
Perseverance is the fruit of faithfulness. Faithfulness accelerates wisdom. Whenever we are faithful with little, when we are trustworthy in the small matters, we accelerate our journey to wisdom. Faithfulness by its very essence implies time. Faith you can have in a moment, faithfulness takes a bit longer.
...all of us have gifts (requiring) stewardship. You have not been left empty handed. To say you don't have talent is to contradict God. Every one of us has God-given talent. We're all uniquie in the contributions we can make. All of us are complex and represent a composite of intelligence, passions, personality, skills and talents. The dynamic interaction of all these are the material from which we draw our potential. Potential is a glimpse of what could be, yet there must be a shift from where we have potential to where we are potent.
Potelntial and productivity are not the same. You're not supposed to die with your potential. A life well-lived squeezes all the potential placed within and does something with it. When potential is harnessed, we become potent. Petential, when it becomes potent, always produces results.... The fool squanders his potential.... Those who are most faithful with the resources will find expanding roles in God's kingdom... it's not about how much you or I get; it's about what we will do with what we have. (Luke 19)
I love Screwtape Letters - very fun and thought-provoking book to read, as you have to keep reminding yourself everything is inside out - like a photo negative.
ReplyDeleteI also like that last quote about potential. I wish there were time in this life to moodle over all the deep things people have said and written! (and time and energy put them into practice.)