II Corinthians 7:9-10

"I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us." --II Corinthians 7:9

When we feel at our worst, we're really at our best because it is then that we are most willing and able to turn to God for direction and for strength. It is then we are most willing to sacrifice our own selfish desires in order to follow God, and then when we are most able to feel the all-powerful strength of God. We know at that moment we will always have the strength to endure, and always have a direction in which to go. And so to all of us who are feeling low in the world, let us rejoice, or at least take solace, in the fact that we are primed for spiritual growth. We have a wonderful opportunity at our feet to lay aside the desires of the world, and instead turn to the desires of our God. While we are broken down, let us build ourselves up right -- by not building at all, but by letting God make us into His new creation, so that we might move forward to new wars, and not insist on remaining in the same rut fighting the same old battles.

"For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death." --II Corinthians 7:10

Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." --Proverbs 3:5-6

It's a scary thing for most of us to examine our hearts and lives because I think most all of us have things which we put our joy in other than God, be they talents, objects or affections. It's an easy trap to fall into, happening right under our noses yet without our knowledge. We must, then, as dedicated believers in the faith, daily examine ourselves and our priorities in order to determine from where our joy comes. Some might think this is a tiny mistake to make or fault to have, and in some respects it is. But putting joy in objects other than God, no matter how small, is dangerous for two reasons: one, it will provide immense pain and discomfort over a loss of this joy, and perhaps a resulting loss of confidence; and two, it can prove to be a slippery slope if not held in constant check, leading us to put more and more confidence in the thing, while leading us away from God, the true source of our joy. And the bottom to which this slippery slope leads is not one we should be aspiring to reach.

The Way We Were

The way we used to go, and the men we used to be,
are but fading memories I can barely see.
Are we now better men
than we were way back when;
or the better days will we no longer see?

It's a question I often find myself thinking;
and my bravado, I find it slowly shrinking.
That powerful man I thought was me
was nothing more than a flashing dream,
and disappears further the more I keep blinking.

Underneath the facade I find the man I've been aching to be
struggling to break out and grow into it's tree.
With a firm reliance on my God,
I slowly take to this new path I trod,
hoping only to draw closer to Him who set me free.

But my mind, it still wanders itself back to then,
when we thought we had finally become men.
The youth in our eyes
couldn't help us to realize
Manhood is a long journey we had yet to begin.

A Message of Hope -- I Corinthians 2.9

"When a wicked man dies, his expectation will perish, and the hope of strong men perishes." --Proverbs 11:7

It's funny sometimes to think about how God works. Funny in a good kind of way. Suffice it to say, I was struggling last week with hope. I had my good moments and my bad moments, but overall I felt like I was being tossed back and forth too much. I wondered how it was my hope was so small that it would fluctuate so quickly and so drastically. I was like a tiny ship being tossed about by the winds and surf of a storm. Little did I know that I was struggling because I was putting my hope in the wrong place. Last Sunday when I went to church, I felt like God was talking straight to me, both in the service and in Sunday school. Believe it or not, the topic for the service was about hope--specifically, putting your hope in the right place, or the right kind of hope. Then when I went to Sunday school, the lesson was about "preparing for rain"--how when you pray, you should go out and work to be ready for the blessing you are seeking. If you are a farmer and need rain, in addition to praying for rain, you also have to go out and prepare your field to receive the rain. That shows that you are truly believing God to answer your prayer. I laughed to myself both times I found out the topics, and smiled thinking how great is the God we serve.

I am learning, slowly but surely, by the grace of our Lord, what it means to have the right kind of hope. I was looking for a sure hope that God would answer my prayer; and would grow discouraged when I realized that I could find no such assurance. My hope seemed to fail me at the time when I needed it the most, because I was putting my hope in God to answer my prayer and give me this blessing. And though answered prayer is part of our hope in God, it cannot, and should not, be the totality of our hope, for that is much too small an expectation for our God. The hope we have from Him, and which is afforded to us through our Savior Jesus Christ, when spoken of in the Bible, is a hope that surpasses all other promises, and carries us through all of our trials. Hope, in the New Testament, is almost always spoken of in reference to our salvation, the riches of Heaven that Christ provides for us. It can carry us through because it is not limited to deliverance from our present trial. "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men" (Icorinthians15:19). For we all will eventually endure a trial for which no deliverance will come, and death will result. If our hope is only in God for deliverance in this life, then on that day we will believe the Lord has failed us. Really, though, we were merely believing in Him wrongly.

But since the hope we have in Christ goes beyond this life to an eternity spent in His presence, we have hope through all our trials, no matter if deliverance comes or not. Thus, as long as I set my hope on the righteousness God has promised me through Christ, then I will always have joy, and always have strength to endure. I have enough joy to live out Philippians 1:27: "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ."

"Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off." --Proverbs 23:18