Copied From Streams In The Desert 2012-05-12
“All things are possible to him that believeth."
(Mark 9:23)
The
"all things" do not always come simply for the asking, for the reason
that God is ever seeking to teach us the way of faith,
and in our training
in the faith life there must be room for the trial of faith, the discipline of
faith, the patience of faith,
the courage of
faith, and often many stages are passed before we really realize what is the
end of faith, namely, the victory of faith.
Real moral fibre is
developed through discipline of faith.
You have made your request of God, but
the answer does not come.
What are you to do?
Keep on believing
God's Word; never be moved away from it by what you see or feel,
and thus as
you stand steady, enlarged power and experience is being developed.
The fact of looking
at the apparent contradiction as to God's Word and being unmoved from your
position of faith make you stronger on every other line.
Often God delays
purposely, and the delay is just as much an answer to your prayer as is the
fulfillment when it comes.
In the lives of all
the great Bible characters, God worked thus.
Abraham, Moses and Elijah were not
great in the beginning,
but were made great
through the discipline of their faith,
and only thus were they fitted for the
positions to which God had called them.
For example, in the
case of Joseph whom the Lord was training for the throne of Egypt,
we read in
the Psalms: "The word of
the Lord tried him."
It was not the prison life with its hard beds or poor
food that tried him,
but it was the word God had spoken into his heart in the
early years concerning elevation and honor which were greater than his brethren
were to receive;
it was this which
was ever before him, when every step in his career made it seem more and more
impossible of fulfillment,
until he was there imprisoned, and all in innocency,
while others who
were perhaps justly incarcerated, were released,
and he was left to languish
alone.
These were hours
that tried his soul, but hours of spiritual growth and development, that,
"when his word
came" (the word of release), found him fitted for the delicate task of
dealing with his wayward brethren,
with a love and
patience only surpassed by God Himself.
No amount of
persecution tries like such experiences as these.
When God has spoken of His purpose to do, and yet the
days go on and He does not do it, that is truly hard;
but it is a discipline of faith that will bring us into a
knowledge of God which would otherwise be impossible.
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