He
will make your righteous reward shine
like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.
Psalms 37:6
How does God want us to live during the trials in our lives,
so that we can reap the eternal rewards intended by a compassionate and merciful
God. Below are some ways that could help us to keep ourselves aligned to God during
our hard times.
Prayer and Worship
When faced with
troubles and difficulties, we lose heart and give up praying. We are so emotionally spent that we do not
have the strength or heart to pray. But, this is the time we need to yield our
distress to God. Even if we cannot pray,
when we kneel down in His presence, His Holy spirit will intercedes for us,
bringing us peace and comfort. When we
pray, we are depending on God to work in our situation, thus paving the way for
fulfilling God’s plan in our circumstances.
When we lose heart and do not pray, we are depending on ourselves to
find a solution, which leaves the door open for our prowling enemy- the devil
to work out his will in our lives. Therefore my dear brothers and sisters,
never give up on praying even if our emotions and feelings tend to pull us back
from spending time in God’s presence.
Faith and Hope
Job 27:4- My lips will not speak wickedness, nor my tongue
utter deceit.
Job 27:6 – My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it
go, my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.
Even in the midst of
our difficulties, like Job, let us pray to God to enable us to hold on to our
integrity and faith in Him. Do not lose heart and blame or accuse God for our
problems. Instead have faith in Him, focusing on His character. Our God is
good. He is mighty and powerful, able to perform and fulfill all His promises.
He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is greater than all our troubles.
When we submit ourselves to Him humbly and honestly, He will deliver us from
our difficulties in His own way and in His own timing, because ultimately God
can see the big picture and knows exactly what is best for us.
Trust in God
Believe firmly in God’s character. He is good, loving and
faithful. He will not allow the righteous to be moved. Even when we feel everything around is coming
apart, trust in Him . He will never fail. He is able to turn around even the
worst situations for our good (Romans8:28). Turn your eyes away from your circumstances and fix your gaze on
God. Ultimately He is in control of the whole world and everything in it. He
knows our present and our future. And we can trust Him to give us the courage,
strength and wisdom to deal with our difficulties wisely as per His will.
Our relationship with God will strengthen when our faith is
tested and we are still able to hold on without breaking. We can see this
played out in the lives of Abraham, when he was tested by God to agree to
sacrifice his only son Isaac, Job when he lost everything he possessed including
his health, David though he was promised by God to be the King of Israel, was
hiding from Saul and wandering form one cave to another, Moses who wanted to be
relieved of the responsibility of leading the complaining, rebellious
Israelites. All of them were tested to the breaking point by God, but they
still chose to trust Him and so we remember them as great men of faith in the
Bible.
Whereas when we look at the lives of some others like Solomon
who was filled with wisdom and knowledge, Samson who was blessed by God from birth
with great strength and Judas who was always with Jesus and had the opportunity
to learn everything needed for him to trust in God, we see that they were
snared by worldly cares and standards and so failed the test. Though they were
blessed in the beginning, because they lacked trust and faith in God, they are
numbered among the failures.
Dear brothers and sisters, God’s purpose in our lives is to
become more and more like Him. This will be achieved completely only when we
reach eternity. To fulfill this end, God prepares us through trials and
difficulties through which we learn endurance, patience and increased faith and
hope in our Lord. At the end of our trials, if we have kept our eyes focused on
God, persevering in prayer, trusting in Him with faith and hope, we often
realize that we ourselves have been changed, our nature molded slowly to think
and act as per God’s will, conforming by degrees to His character, thereby
bringing peace and a sense of fulfillment in our lives.
Today, let’s make a decision to surrender and trust in God to
work out His will and purpose in every situation facing us, so that we can see
the manifestation of His love and faithfulness in our lives.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope
Romans 5 :3-4
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