Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous

One test after another and they come from such unexpected places and in such unexpected ways. A simple look at the wrong moment and doubt floods us fully, doubts about each other, doubts about life, doubts about ourselves and our Christian walk. Sure we are told we will face many obstacles, we are told our faith will be tried in the fire, yes we are told that suffering is the lot of those who will take up the cross and we believe it, we do and then it begins. Yes, it begins and the trials and tribulations start and Satan will go all out as his reigns are loosed to pound at us. We imagine ourselves strong and ready for the battle that's until a dagger is thrust into our hearts from the most unexpected source- from a loved one. The dagger thrust not once but over and over again, and not all at once but just when we think the wound is healed it's reopened again viciously.


Everyone without exception is to be tried and we're not all going to face the same tests because our lives are all so different. A high profiled person will face tests that fit their life, just as a person in poverty will face their own individual tests. Some might say the poverty alone is the test and others will agree that the life of a rich person has their tests with wealth. Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get to heaven and it's true- how many rich people abandon their wealth for God?


Everyone is to be tried without exception and the trying is a personal thing individually crafted to bring us closer to God, closer to the full belief that God is everything while our lives are nothing- our lives are to be sacrificed to Him, living sacrifices.


Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.


Our hearts can bleed through the suffering we endure and as they bleed we are--


Rom 8:36 ... killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.


Psa 44:22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Psa 44:23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
Psa 44:24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
Psa 44:25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
Psa 44:26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.


We can't pick and choose how we are chastened, the chastening comes from completely unexpected places, we can only hope and pray that we will recognize the chastening for what it is and cling to Christ as the pain washes over us time and again and we don't know where our lives are going. As one security after another is ripped from us and we flail about in despair wondering just how will survive may God become ever more real to us. As some tell us we should abandon God because He's abandoned us, let us by the grace of God tell them that no matter what God would never abandon us, we abandon Him. Will our lives be easy for that admission? No. Will the pain lessen or the trials cease? No. One trial might end only for another to begin. By the grace of God may we holdfast to the One with the power to save us from ourselves. Heb 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.


Heb 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.


By the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior now and forever.


In Christ.


Amen.