Monday, April 03, 2006

Confidence

In life we face an unknown future. We do not know what the days that lie ahead for us contain, but we can prepare for whatever lies ahead.

We all need to view life as a learning opportunity. We need to ask God "what do you want me to learn from this situation?". We need to ask this and then listen to what He tells us. And as I see it the only way to do that is to set aside time for Him. Reading my Bible and praying daily helps me to receive those instructions and to know what direction God wants me to go. I know that He often encourages me through His presence in my alone time and His promises in His word, which can be interpretted to some degree through my circumstances through life. I have come to realize that I need to take advantage of the down time after hard times, the lull after the storm, when I am trying to pull everything together and trying to sort through the events and the lessons of my life.

The situations that we face today help to build a greater confidence of God in our lives and then gives us the assurance that we can tackle anything that lies ahead! Incident after incident and lesson after lesson when we experience God's faithfulness towards us and His grace and His power, we gain the confidence to say "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength".

I like to think of Paul when I am going through a tough time. Although I have never faced anything close to what Paul faced, he is there for us to learn through his experiences. Throughout Paul's ministry he was definitely faced with different circumstances that we could never handle as gracefully as he did. He never asked "Why me Lord?" but he always asked "What do you want me to understand from this situation?" He wholly and totally relied on God in EVERYTHING. We need to live by this great example. Everything that we face in our lives we need to rely on God and not on ourselves.
Philippians 4:13...I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Bernie, I love you and I pray this for you! I know that you are going through a really tough time right now and I can never totally understand your struggles, but I know that you can overcome this. I know that if you put the Lord first in your life, you can overcome anything and have an awesome testimony later. One day at a time! I love you little brother!

1 comment:

Lori said...

Isn't Bernie so lucky to have two praying sisters?