The idea of transforming into a better person is great. I mean we all want to change; we all want to be better today than the day before. We all want to transform ourselves into something different. The hard part in the midst of it all is keeping faith.
Faith is the hardest thing about change. Faith is the hardest thing to maintain throughout because you don't know what's going on. It's as you change that things seem to get darker and darker and darker. It's as you start to transform that it seems as if the dark clouds just keep coming and coming. It's always darkest before the dawn. In writing this, I find myself thinking about David for a number of reasons.
David, even though he was a man after God's own heart, had some dark nights. He was being chased.Saul wanted to kill him. He was living in the wilderness away from his wife, his family, and his best friend. He had to sleep in trees and in caves. He had to wait for signals in order to know when it was safe or when it was not..... This is just to name a few of the things he had to go through on his way to being king. You could argue that he had help and that he did not have to go through what he did alone - that he had others to help him out... Truth be told he was by himself. Truth be told he spent more time alone than with other people. In the midst of this he prayed. He prayed..... He prayed...... He still kept seeking after God. He learned to rely on him more in the midst of this than at any other time in his life. This is the period of his life from which the majority of the book Psalms come. They are comprised of David's personal testimonies and his praise. He is one of the many examples of people who figured out what to do in the midst of a dark night. He realized that while things were dark, the one thing he had as a constant in his life was God. He recognized that no matter what happened, no matter what was going on, God was still in the midst of it all. God was his strength, his deliverer. God was the thing in which he could trust... It was God who saved him from his enemies. It was God who never failed him. (Psalm 18).
We have to remember that if God is for us who can be against us. There are going to be times in which we go through fire. It is the fire that strengthens us; that hardens us; that forces us to examine our lives. We have to go through the fire in order to get rid of things in which are not good for us. We have to go through the fire in order to no longer rely on our own understanding of things. It's the fire that pushes us closer to God. But we have to keep faith. We cannot give up just when things are getting rough. God is doing a new thing in us, but we can not get to where he needs us to be if we give up. Faith is the most important thing in the midst of change. It's the thing that will get us through, especially when it seems as if God is not hearing our prayers; when we think he's not moving. It's the thing that we need most and yet it is the hardest thing about change.
Faith is the hardest thing about change. Faith is the hardest thing to maintain throughout because you don't know what's going on. It's as you change that things seem to get darker and darker and darker. It's as you start to transform that it seems as if the dark clouds just keep coming and coming. It's always darkest before the dawn. In writing this, I find myself thinking about David for a number of reasons.
David, even though he was a man after God's own heart, had some dark nights. He was being chased.Saul wanted to kill him. He was living in the wilderness away from his wife, his family, and his best friend. He had to sleep in trees and in caves. He had to wait for signals in order to know when it was safe or when it was not..... This is just to name a few of the things he had to go through on his way to being king. You could argue that he had help and that he did not have to go through what he did alone - that he had others to help him out... Truth be told he was by himself. Truth be told he spent more time alone than with other people. In the midst of this he prayed. He prayed..... He prayed...... He still kept seeking after God. He learned to rely on him more in the midst of this than at any other time in his life. This is the period of his life from which the majority of the book Psalms come. They are comprised of David's personal testimonies and his praise. He is one of the many examples of people who figured out what to do in the midst of a dark night. He realized that while things were dark, the one thing he had as a constant in his life was God. He recognized that no matter what happened, no matter what was going on, God was still in the midst of it all. God was his strength, his deliverer. God was the thing in which he could trust... It was God who saved him from his enemies. It was God who never failed him. (Psalm 18).
We have to remember that if God is for us who can be against us. There are going to be times in which we go through fire. It is the fire that strengthens us; that hardens us; that forces us to examine our lives. We have to go through the fire in order to get rid of things in which are not good for us. We have to go through the fire in order to no longer rely on our own understanding of things. It's the fire that pushes us closer to God. But we have to keep faith. We cannot give up just when things are getting rough. God is doing a new thing in us, but we can not get to where he needs us to be if we give up. Faith is the most important thing in the midst of change. It's the thing that will get us through, especially when it seems as if God is not hearing our prayers; when we think he's not moving. It's the thing that we need most and yet it is the hardest thing about change.
