When I start praying "God make me more like You and less of me"...I better be ready for God to give me circumstance in which to be more like Him and less like sinful me! I have a friend that just read this book I loaned her called, "Assured By God" (by several authors-forward by RC Sproul), she read this part that stood out to her aloud to me and I of course was like "oooh good blog post!" So here is that portion that is so rich!
"Positive character traits, for the most part, can be learned only in the crucible of adversity. Consider those traits called by Paul "the fruit of the Spirit...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). We learn to love truly only when we are placed in close quarters with someone who is difficult to love. We learn true joy and peace only when we experience circumstances that in themselves tend to rob us of our joy and peace in the Lord. We learn patience only by being in the continual presence of someone whose actions try our patience. We learn to trust God only when He places us in circumstances in which we are forced to depend on Him. All the admirable traits of Christian character then are formed and grown through the discipline of adversity."
I think the important thing for myself to remember is that if I want to become more like Christ, I had better expect these types of circumstances to refine and grow me...Bring it on Lord :)
4 comments:
Fantastic quote! Thanks for sharing it. Why is it that we think what is best for us is usually the easiest road...the road in which we see little of the glory of God and much, instead, of our own self sufficiency?
That quote is a reminder to never forget!!!
What a beautiful reminder...reading the quote helped me to picture the fruits of the spirit into action...I'm going to read it again
When we look back at past circumstances that have matured us in Christ...what a joy it is to see how Christ uses them to encourage others and it makes the past struggles into joy...what a blessing and gift from the Lord.
You know, God's timing is so indescribably perfect!!!! You posted this on Friday however I have been about a week behind in reading blogs and so did not get to read this until tonight. I cannot tell you what a MASSIVE encouragement it was to me. I had a VERY, VERY, VERY difficult long weekend with one of my teenagers and I was struggling to find the lesson in it all. My family and I did EVERYTHING we could (patience, unconditional love, etc.) to just live in the same house with this child who was struggling so terribly with anger and being hateful to parents and siblings alike with the excuse of feeling "sick". Had I read this post on Friday before the storm began I would not have grasped the amazing beauty of it...not only in general but as an answer to my prayers of, "What could I have done differently?" and "Why?" God is AWESOME and I am infinitely thankful for the body of Christ and His perfect timing!!!!
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