Eternity’s eternal song is calling me and drawing me away…

This season in life is so much different than any of the others before it. Sometimes I don’t quite know what to do with myself. God’s voice and His direction are becoming so much clearer, and everything else so much dimmer. Yet the lust of the flesh rages just as strong as ever. God’s voice — that piercing still small voice — has been all that’s sustained me at times. I would be nothing without Him.

This season has been one of testing, trials, and hard-core purging. It’s what we call the winepress. The things I’ve had to face in this season of life have been some of the most difficult I’ve ever gone through in my life. It’s been one thing after another and it keeps getting more and more difficult. By His grace, I walk in victory over each trial. But only by His grace do I stand.

In those intense moments, right in the middle of the storm, where I just want to give up, run away, and call it quits, I hear a gentle word from the Lord. It’s funny how even the gentlest word from God can pierce your heart and turn your stomach even so that you lose your breath! But all it takes is that gentle rebuke or exhortation from God to encourage you to pick up your sword, put on your armor, and fight your way through the rest of the storm so that you come out in victory by His grace and in His strength. This is also where being eternally minded really strengthens you to endure.

I feel like God has been teaching me to overcome even my own emotions that have been able to control me for so long. It’s come to the point where, if my emotions control me, I will end up not making it through these trials and giving up. I had no idea the kind of power we have in the Lord to overcome even our own emotions. I mean, obviously God is God and He can do anything, but I can also do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I’ve come to find Philippians 4:13 to be absolutely true through experience these past few weeks.

Even just physically speaking life over myself by saying the truths of scripture out loud has been like a sword to help me fight and to give me strength to endure through anything. In fact, that’s exactly what Job did, that’s exactly what Paul did, and most importantly, that’s exactly what Jesus did. When tempted, when persecuted, when being slandered, mocked, and through all kinds of trial and tribulation, they picked up their sword and fought. They spoke the truth about God, they spoke forth the truth of the Word of God, and the endured because they used their sword not only as a weapon to defeat the enemy, but also as an anchor to stay steady and not be moved.

Job 26 is the perfect example. Job, as most of you well know, went through some of the most intense trials a man has ever endured all in one season of life. On top of all that, his “friends” mock him, slander him, and speak lies over him. In response to all of that is what Job says in Job 26:

Then Job answered and said: ‘How You have helped him who has no power! How You have saved the arm that has no strength! How You have counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge! With whose help have You uttered words, and whose breath has come out from You? The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants. Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering. He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it His cloud. He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at His rebuke. By His power He stilled the sea; by His understanding He shattered Rahab. By His wind the heavens were made fair; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?’”

Then we see Jesus practicing this same thing in Matthew 4:1-11 –Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But He answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command His angels concerning You,’ and ”’On their hands they will bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to Him.

The Devil even tried twisting scripture to use against Jesus, but Jesus was pro-active and fought back with the truth of the Word of God. For both Job and Jesus, the Word of God was both their sword and their anchor. It’s no coincidence that the Word of God is portrayed as a double-edged sword and the only weapon listed in the Ephesians 6 armor of God.

Anyway, I’ve been learning a lot and growing a lot. I praise God for this season of life, even though it is the most difficult season yet, I can rejoice and have joy because I know that this momentary, light, affliction is working in me an eternal weight of glory!!! For real. Amen!!!!

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (AMP) –

“Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.”

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~ by stephaniegerard on March 10, 2007.