The Terribly Romantic, "Impossible" life we very possibly Live :)

As the furoughs of pain are plowed deeper into the soul, so also the lines of character are more distinctly drawn. I always thought that when life becomes “arrived” and resistance free, then also will I be blossoming and glowing with success. But, ere I find that the more this flower is pressed and perplexed, the more the fragrance of Christ is escaped from me. This pressing and casting down almost brings despair, yet cannot destroy.  The inner life of the saint has eternal resilience that baffles this world.  The tortured and tried saint is the cause of God weaving the common, Roman cross into a glorious crown.

My stubborn heart strives for explanation, but can scarce determine the path beneath me. Where will tomorrow take? Below, I see only a small portion of earth with each wobbly step. God, I’ve never been this way before, and you have never led me quite like this. You do not reveal more than one step at a time, but choose to reveal Yourself instead. You tell me that it is not tomorrow or an earthly arrival that I must see, but Your face and heart experienced before me today.

It has been said that God engineers various times of overcast and fog over our paths.  In these times, sight will profit nothing, for there is nothing my eyes can determine of the spiritual work concealed from me.  The marvelous working of God is momentarily undiscerned by my eyes, so that my heart will learn to trust - that though I cannot see more than one step of earth beneath me, the living God is working out a greater plan.

After the struggle and wrestling to get sight, to demand my right to see what is going on; alas I relent and just believe in only what I can know, that is Jesus, my reward. In the foggy day, the indiscriminate time, He is the blessing to be had and the precious treasure to be found and enjoyed. Though my eyes do not perceive, my ears are still able to hear His faithful words. They come softly, but surely through the dense fog. “I am with you always.”  

“But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold”- Job 23:10.

Life will find a way; there is always hope and new buds of green that sprout undetected.  They are growing all unseen, into a fruitful garden of the Lord’s. To my surprise, I have discovered  these hopeful  little buds born from death. Most unexpectedly, they are small and green, coming forth with great resilience and strength through the "impossible" darkness. They so purely say, to yet hope in God.

There was a time when I thought that just a trial or two and then it would get easier and God would be finished. But, we are soldiers in the Lord’s army together, and there is no retirement from our enlistment. Yes, rest and peace in Christ, but only in the midst of battle are these most real and sweet.  We have an impossible life of beauty from ashes, of being cast down but not destroyed, of being perplexed but not forsaken. “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day”- 2 Corinthians 4:16.  

God Himself is the reward and the peace we experience in the darkest day of battle. He massively lends Himself to the weary and thirsty soldier, fighting endlessly on the front lines. God is the overflowing spring from which we draw new life day by day. If you find yourself continually in the face of enemy fire, do not shrink back, for the Lord is your rear guard and you are dressed to move forward in His armor. You will make it, even when hope is hard to see. Don’t quit, for Jesus is Your Commander, and He has valiantly gone before you, to every place you must go.

If I had not known even my small, light affliction, neither would I have known much of Jesus. The suffering Savior would have been still alien and distant. But His stripes have brought me close. My sufferings are shared in His; we are knit through His blood that gives me life. The soul that endures these present trials, is being woven into a greater story of God’s deeply romantic love for us. The couple that endures great trials and opposition together is the terribly romantic, epic kind of love story.

  “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. … For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”- 2 Corinthians 4:1, 5-7.