The Lord doesn’t make it easy for those who believe in Him…

Why is this?

He is bringing us closer to Himself…

He wants us to go through the disappointments of not getting what we thought He’d told us so that we can understand the lesson behind what He was using that conversation to teach us…

God is more interested in understanding than knowledge…

God can tell us facts but sometimes when God tells us facts it is actually only to challenge our mindset and help us to see something deeper about ourselves…

When God told Hezekiah that he should put his house in order for he would surely die Hezekiah could have taken this as a fact and said, “Amen!” and he would have missed the lesson which the Lord was trying to teach him to pour out his heart before the Lord…

Hezekiah learnt from that experience that deep down in his heart he wasn’t ready to go home yet, he had more to do on earth…

Sure, he made some mistakes with his extra 15 years but I believe he was still better for it – he had an encounter with God where God very personally ministered to him as an individual and I am sure that his life and experience with the Lord was all the richer for it…

Abraham heard facts from the Lord, that he was to go to a certain mountain and offer his only son up as a sacrifice to the Lord and did take this as fact and went about doing it but the Lord didn’t speak it as fact – although He did – but He actually spoke it to teach Abraham about what Jesus would do for us all those years later so that Abraham could see ahead the sacrifice of Jesus and believe…

So we see that not everything which the Lord tells us – as those who believe in Him – as facts actually are facts – they are actually the beginning of a conversation which helps us to deepen our understanding of who the Lord is…

The Lord wants to know us…

He isn’t interested in our performance…

He has already accepted us in Jesus…

The Lord wants us to know Him…

He wants a relationship with us…

He wants to walk through life together with us where we know Him intimately in every aspect of our lives…

Where we know Him so well that we surrender – outright – to whatever He says to do and trust Him implicitly even if in so doing we look stupid or He changes His Mind or what He said doesn’t happen because He was actually telling us that to start a conversation with us about what we – deep down – still believe, to endeavour to change what we believe – to deepen what we believe – so it is reflective of what He believes – so we can know what makes Him tick…

Nothing is a test to break us, everything is a test to strengthen us and draw us closer to Himself  – remember that for all of us who know Him, we are already His children, we are already His Bride, He already loves us and just wants to deepen that relationship with us by removing our preconceived ideas about who He is…

He will smash down our preconceived ideas so that all we have left is childlike faith…

Childlike trust…

Childlike dependence…

This is what He wants…

And He is unscrupulous to get it…

Why?

Because He loves us…

This is what discipline looks like…

It’s not, struggle and try harder…

It’s not, punish yourself when you fail or fall short…

It’s the discipline of having your security blankets ripped out from underneath you and being left very exposed and very aware that you are standing in a place where you have no physical or practical means of support – where all the natural props are removed and you realise that God is your only support and that there is no other way than the way He said, the way He promised, that the thing which He has been telling you can come to pass…

And in this place, which you have been prepared for by all these preceding experiences or journeys or relationships with the Lord, you are able to stand tall on His Word – His Word to you and His Word about His Purpose for His Earth…

His Purpose for all who live in His Universe…

Even for those who have traveled to space and are not presently living on planet earth – He has a purpose for all – for every single human being to whom He has given the breath of life…

So embrace your sorrowful circumstances, your continued unanswered questions, the things which bring you pain in your heart, your quandaries and uncertainties and things which just don’t make any sense to you – give them all to the Lord and watch Him give you in return a deeper knowledge of and surrender to Him as Your Sovereign Father…

For He is our Sovereign Father – He has a Sovereign will – He makes ultimate decisions for each of our lives – and these decisions – these ultimate decisions – which He makes, cannot be changed…

We can talk to Him about them over and over and over but if He has made one of these ultimate decisions then we can rest assured that He will accomplish it and that the accomplishing of it is for our good – in fact that there is nothing better than Him accomplishing this decision because He is our Sovereign Father and everything He does for us is calculated to bring us closer to Him and the closer to Him we are the happier and freer we are and the more liberated we are and the closer we are to His image and likeness, the more we experience His Eternal, stress free approach to life…

Basically, as David said, who knew this journey,

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
That I may tell of all Your works. (Psalm 73:28 NASB)

Love,

Andrew