I love the story of Gideon, and in today's reading we find the Angel of the Lord coming to Gideon, and commissioning him to deliver Israel. He tells Gideon, "The Lord is with you!" However, rather than rejoicing at the proclamation, Gideon's response is, "If the Lord is with us, why have all these things come upon us...?"
I was thinking about this statement and how we often ask the same question. If the Lord is with me, why am I having so many trials? If the Lord is with me, why does it seem like everything is going wrong sometimes? If the Lord is with me, why does it feel like I'm in captivity? If the Lord is with me.... [you fill in the blank].
Ellen White says something interesting about this, something that has really helped me when dealing with character testing trials. I want to share that here.
Many who sincerely consecrate their lives to God’s service are surprised and disappointed to find themselves, as never before, confronted by obstacles and beset by trials and perplexities. They pray for Christlikeness of character, for a fitness for the Lord’s work, and they are placed in circumstances that seem to call forth all the evil of their nature. Faults are revealed of which they did not even suspect the existence. Like Israel of old they question, “If God is leading us, why do all these things come upon us?”
It is because God is leading them that these things come upon them. Trials and obstacles are the Lord’s chosen methods of discipline and His appointed conditions of success. He who reads the hearts of men knows their characters better than they themselves know them. He sees that some have powers and susceptibilities which, rightly directed, might be used in the advancement of His work. In His providence He brings these persons into different positions and varied circumstances that they may discover in their character the defects which have been concealed from their own knowledge. He gives them opportunity to correct these defects and to fit themselves for His service. Often He permits the fires of affliction to assail them that they may be purified.
The fact that we are called upon to endure trial shows that the Lord Jesus sees in us something precious which He desires to develop. If He saw in us nothing whereby He might glorify His name, He would not spend time in refining us. He does not cast worthless stones into His furnace. It is valuable ore that He refines. The blacksmith puts the iron and steel into the fire that he may know what manner of metal they are. The Lord allows His chosen ones to be placed in the furnace of affliction to prove what temper they are of and whether they can be fashioned for His work.
The potter takes the clay and molds it according to his will. He kneads it and works it. He tears it apart and presses it together. He wets it and then dries it. He lets it lie for a while without touching it. When it is perfectly pliable, he continues the work of making of it a vessel. He forms it into shape and on the wheel trims and polishes it. He dries it in the sun and bakes it in the oven. Thus it becomes a vessel fit for use. So the great Master Worker desires to mold and fashion us. And as the clay is in the hands of the potter, so are we to be in His hands. We are not to try to do the work of the potter. Our part is to yield ourselves to be molded by the Master Worker.
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” 1 Peter 4:12, 13. (From Ministry of Healing, p. 471-472)So.... while we may not be captives like Israel, perhaps the Lord is allowing certain trials in our life as He wants to refine our characters and draw us back to Him. It could also be, that we live in a fallen broken world, and as such, we suffer the pain of the Great Controversy battle. None the less, God is with us. And He is working all things together (even the bad things) for good.
Tomorrow's Reading: Judges 7-8 and Mark 2
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