The stock market tanked yesterday on news that we have "officially" been in a recession since last fall. I admit ignorance as to how the market works, but why was this considered news? I would think that these financial "experts" would have already known that.
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Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. --Hebrews 12:11
If God has singled you out to be a special object of His grace you may expect Him to honor you with stricter discipline and greater suffering than less favored ones are called upon to endure....
If God sets out to make you an unusual Christian He is not likely to be as gentle as He is usually pictured by the popular teachers. A sculptor does not use a manicure set to reduce the rude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful.
To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be. That Incredible Christian, pp. 122-124
So I am reminded today: Be careful what you pray for! But I will continue to pray for radical transformation in my life.
1 comment:
I have learned that answered prayer can bring pain. Not pain that is unwarranted but pain that is needed to drive us through the place we are to the place we need to be. We build our own walls, our own obstacles that keep us from God and we have to crash through those to reach Him again. The crash brings the pain that is needed but hurts all the same. Now my prayer is for my acceptance to go through whatever is needed to be closer to God because once the pain is gone, once I'm closer to God, it is peace and sweetness that is undescribable.
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