When suffering grows long

 When suffering grows long…

Pretense is cast away and the true colors of our faith are revealed.

Questions surface, doubts speak, and endurance wears thin. 

This is when we are purified by fire.

How will we answer the questions? 

How will we fight the doubts? 

How will we keep going through the suffering when the endurance all but disappears? 

The answer is simple. So simple in fact, that we easily overlook it. 

We can’t. Our own resources are not enough to pull us through.

And when we finally embrace that fact, we open ourselves up to One greater than our weakness. 

He steps amid the rubble of our broken lives, sees the crushed self-will, the shredded self-confidence, the sense that all control is lost, and finds us in a place where He can do something with us. 

For before the long season of suffering began, though we thought we had built up something He could use, He saw how we were trying to mix self in with His power.

And He also saw the great potential for His power to be able to work in us. 

So the fires came and did their work. They brought the self-built faith to the surface and revealed what had really been His work all along. 

When at first we thought we could endure, the fires eventually proved we couldn’t, for self-made strength runs out over time. 

The fire burns the dross down to nothing, until the treasure of heavenly strength is discovered.

You see, less of me means more of Jesus. 

Less of self-confidence means more true, heaven-built faith.

Less self-will means more desire for heavenly things. 

Less of self-effort means more of God’s divine power flowing through us. 

That is what the fires are for. 

They are not there to mock you, though if all you do is look at you, you will feel mocked.

They are not there to make your existence a miserable one, though you will be miserable if you only stare at the flames. 

Every lick of the flame -the crushing of self and all that self has made- is for a much greater purpose. 

One that, were you to be able to zoom out and see, would floor you. 

You see, if this fire is making room for Himself, then He is making it possible for living water to flow freely and powerfully through you onto thirsty souls. 

He is making it possible for you to be a well of life for others, a place of healing and relief from deep soul-pain. 

You cannot see it all now, but when suffering grows long for you, know He won’t waste a moment of it.

And don’t stare at the fires that seem to consume you, stare at the One who walks beside you in it. ❤️

-Isaiah 43:2-