If you plant a plant in good soil and water it regularly, it will grow. If you allow God's Word to settle in your soul and trust it, believe it and obey the One who gave it, you will grow too. If you keep digging up the plant you will stunt its growth or worse. If you keep taking holidays from trusting God your growth will be stunted too.
It is easy to trust God in the good times, but our faith is seen to be genuine (in fact made genuine) in the furnace of difficult times. You can do it though, you can with His help learn to trust Him even in times of testing. This is at least part of what today's and last day's verse is all about. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). This does not mean you won't stumble. A child does not learn to walk without taking a few falls. What brings them through, is the determination not to give up, and to get up after a fall over and over and over if necessary. And the legs of our faith are strengthened (He strengthens them) as we learn to walk in the Spirit, as we learn to trust no matter what.
The verse in Philippians 4 has a context. Paul says in verse 11 and 12 of the same chapter “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances”, and “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want”. Note first and foremost it is something that he learned. There are things to be learn in the good times and in the bad. We need to learn not to take the good times for granted, we need to learn to be thankful, we need to learn not to take too much of the credit for the good (we are in partnership with the Lord). But perhaps the most enduring lessons are learned in the hard times.
Paul likely suffered more than you or I are ever likely to suffer (see 1 Corinthians 11:22-29). Yet in spite of, perhaps even because of it, he learned to be content no matter what the circumstances. Part of this is that he knew (had an intimate relationship with) the One whom he had believed. “I am convinced” he tells us that “that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). He was trusting in God not in himself, and he was drawing on his relationship with Him to comfort and strengthen him (2 Corinthians 1:3-5). Another part of his learning (as in the title of the post) was that he had to stop fighting the people and the circumstances that God had allowed to come into, and disrupt, his life. We see this supremely in Acts 16:23-25. In the Christian life, in recovery, it is not so much what happens to us that determines our state, as how we (with God's help) respond to the the things that happen.
Let's get in touch with reality here, life is not fair, it is not! Stuff happens (you may have noticed). Stuff will happen for “the rain falls on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). But for the one who loves and trust God, there is an amazing promise : “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). This verse is not saying that evil is good. It is not saying that stuff that happens is easy to deal with, or that it doesn't matter. We don't have to pretend that it is all “small stuff”! What it is saying is that God is actively at work even in and through the evil to bring good to the one who loves and trusts and obeys Him. It does not promise that we will always understand what God is doing, or how He is doing this. It only promises that He is. We may not see it until eternity, but “God is not a man that He should lie or change His mind” (1 Samuel 15:29), and what He has promised He will perform.
Before we leave this verse from Romans, I want to say one more thing. The promise is only to His Children (those who love Him). Part of this is that love shows itself in trust. When we “have to look after number one, because no one else will”, especially when we go round taking revenge or trying to fix others, God has no choice but to take his hands off the other buddy. It is like the older sibling trying to parent a younger child. The parent has to deal with that sibling before he or she can deal with the younger one. So we too need learn to stop fighting the people and circumstances that God has allowed, and give Him space to deal with what needs to be dealt with. It's called trust. Certainly there is a time and a place to say and/or do things. But for sure when we have tried everything and still failed, we need to stop and ask Him if He is waiting for us to get out of the way. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent, a time to embrace and a time to cease from embracing. There is a time for all things (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). But it is always the time to trust Him. When we do, and when we give Him space and time to do His work, He brings us into rest (Matthew 11:28,29), and after we have suffered a little while He will settle and establish us (1 Peter 5:10). This is humbling many times, but when we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God He will in His time, lift us up (1 Peter 5:6). He has promised!
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