None of us want to be in deep crisis. Who does really? When I think of facing troubling times or hard situations I think of fear, anxiety, pain, problems, and a whole host of difficult emotions flooding uninvited into our lives. I think of being blindsided by difficulties and being put into situations that I have little to no control over. Yet as we live in this sin soaked world, will face crisis after crisis. I also remember the words of my Savior, Jesus Christ:
John 16:33 (NLT) “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
There are times in our lives, all of our lives, where we are met with a severe spiritual crisis.
They are always good. What? Always good? Hear me out. I don’t mean that the situation is necessarily good. That’s foolish talk. But the overall work of God in and through the situation? Always good!
We don’t like them. We don’t want them. But they are good. God uses them. They’re a place where we’ve come to a spiritual fork in the road, a place of great monumental decision where we come to the end of ourselves. We don’t see the good in it too much if at all from our side but from heaven’s perspective God is the potter is fashioning His clay! Once in a while God is dealing with us and just wants us to stop and put everything out on the table. He wants our whole heart offered afresh to Him. He wants to take us to a whole new level of commitment and service and readiness and ministry. There aren’t a whole of them in our lives, but just enough for God to draw from us something that we didn’t even know was there. You’re not alone. Many in the Bible had their crisis of faith.
Consider: ABRAHAM. What a man of worship and integrity. He loved God and built many altars, a life filled with worship and sacrifice. But then there is that time when God requested the sacrifice of his son, Isaac. Such a different worship experience. My son? What a Crisis!!! I could never even think of such a thing! And yet through it, God took Abraham farther than he ever thought he could go.
Consider: MOSES. A man who sensed his calling at 40 years of age but attempted to complete it in his own strength. Killing the Egyptian. That led him to 40 years on the backside of the desert. He worshipped God, heard God’s voice, yet came to place where a burning bush was before him. A point of decision. A crisis. He looks at it and it speaks, and there is some negotiation, but God is using this situation in his life behind the scenes to fashion a man of deliverance! “Moses,” God says, “I want all of you something that you and I have never had before! Trust me.”
Consider: DAVID. A young boy who loved God, worshipped God, obeyed his daddy, and enjoyed so many wonderful experiences with the Lord. He’s the one in the Bible that is described as the “man after God’s own heart!” Early in his young life God brings him to the valley to look down on that giant. The one from Gath, Goliath who challenges all that David ever worshipped, blasphemes his God and calls him to battle. He had killed lions and bears but here facing Goliath God was asking from David for more. I want it all. I want you David.
Consider: JOSHUA. Here is a man who had been around a lot of military campaigns, sat in high level leadership decisions, fought and led Israel in many victories. Yet we find him looking over Jericho night before the attack to be met by the Man with a sword is his hand. For us or against us? “Neither”, says the Man! I stand before you as one sent by God! Joshua was a man of worship and a man of faithful integrity. His worship had been regular and routine yet, there are those times when God wants more! He uses them for His purposes. It’s going to be all right Joshua. Go forth and fight!
Consider: DANIEL. We know Daniel a man of regular prayer, worship, devotion and dedication. He loved God with all of his heart. Yet there was the furnace heated 4 his friends, & the lion’s den prepared for him, and God is saying Daniel I want more of you! I want you. I want you to have a deeper dependence upon Me!
Consider: YOU. What you’re currently going through is another crisis God is using to form you, to fashion you, to develop you, to grow you, and to draw you into a deeper more intimate relationship with Him!
And so the trials come. The crisis arrives.
God is using them, we may not even see it until years after it passes, but God is saying I want you, I want all of you, I want more of you! God is going to use the crisis to get more of you God tells us.
These are wonderful times, very precious and dear.
