I am sure we can all look back on our past & see how we have been molded. We can think back to something that we went through or a skill that we had to learn or a battle that we had to walk through, that has either opened you up to being help others in that area or maybe you are using it in life today but never saw back then, how it could be used in your future. Joyce Meyers says, "let God turn your test into a testimony and your mess into a message". Can we look at our life daily or during a trial and say, "Lord, this is for my good & your glory (Janine Mangum quote) and I don't know why I am going through this or why I am having to learn this skill at this job that I can't stand but I am going to trust you enough to make the best of it and let you apply it later, if need be.
I can surely look back on my life and see how I have been molded & I can also look back & see where my sins brought consequences that hindered what God was using to mold me. I can see how my photography is being used now to bless others and to help my finances now but what if I had gone through college and finished that journey. Imagine the lives that I could have touched, instead of living in shame & feeling like a failure in that area & storing that gift away, until I finally let God break those shackles. I can look at the years that I spent working in a preschool, teaching pre-k, at how it gave me helped give me have confidence with homeschooling when God called me to homeschool my children. I can also look at my Daddy and see how knowing who he was, has helped me have compassion and a more servant heart towards my husband because they share many of the same qualities.
Can we as parents look into the daily lives of our children and see how they are being molded? Can we look at the struggles that our teens face, their battles of sin/weaknesses and say, "Lord, I am going to trust you, you hear my prayers, I am not going to control this area, I am going to trust that you are allowing this because it will help shape him/her"? That's a hard one huh? I wonder if we stopped pointing our fingers & relate more, would their hearts be more willing to change? Yeah, probably so & I do try this but when the going gets tough, it's easier to point fingers and control right?
Can we as spouses drop the expectations of our husband/wife and trust that God could be in the process of molding them? I wonder how much freedom this would bring, if we could live that daily? If I could REALLY not just know but live it? If it's a job that they hate, that you are sick of hearing about, could we encourage them to hang in there because God might use that skill or even workplace for his kingdom & your spouse? If it's a sin or a struggle that they have, can we get over our own selves, stop pointing our fingers and pray and believe that God is strong enough to free them/us but maybe the walking out of this struggle, the dieing to flesh is exactly what God using to mold them/us? Would that help us to encourage, love and accept in a more compassionate way?
I know there's a lot of questions in this blog, really this is just a bunch of thoughts & questions that I have jotted down, while trying to stop wrestling with my pointing finger & to trust God.
Lord, help me to love like you do, help to stop pointing my finger and open my arms, help me to trust you more and forgive me when I don't.
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