Trials

 Monday 18 March 2024

I have decided to resurrect this personal blogger in the hope that it might bless, encourage and maybe even challenge someone including myself reading it.

As I write I am sitting in my Sunroom and looking

at all these beautiful geraniums.  The colours are

beautiful - pinks in all different shades, whites and

reds.  It is so relaxing just watching traffic going 

past including the slurry tankers!

This is a view I love from my chair in the sunroom!

Yesterday I started to slow down in my reading of this book.  I read and took notes but somehow it just wasn't lodging in my brain.  As is usual in my way of reading I decided to stop and think about what I was learning.

I had the enormous privilege of listening to an online service from Limavady Baptist Church yesterday morning.  The speaker John Weir drew some lessons from the life of Ananias but he also had a very appropriate message for boys and girls - isn't that always the way, the message for children sometimes speaks volumes more than perhaps the sermon of the day?  He was talking about how boys and girls can help others.  He produced a letter from a child he had recently received as a result of a Mission in Ballymena.  Along with the letter was a £10.  John was talking about how boys and girls can help others and when I opened this book today Finding God's Path Through Your Trials by Elizabeth George I realised a similar storyline.  Elizabeth talks about how pride sometimes stops us asking for help when we are going through a difficult time.  We want everyone to see us as having it altogether.  We dress up and paste a smile on our face but underneath we are like the duck paddling for all its worth.  No-one sees us as we really are and we don't let others know what is happening in our lives.  Elizabeth went on to describe some times in Paul's life where he received help when he least expected it and he had to swallow his pride to accept it.  The people of the Philippian church wanted to show that they were remembering him in prayer but they also demonstrated their love for him in a practical financial gift.  Sometimes we don't know how to help others and we wonder if people could be offended by what we say.  I have been there recently.  Sometimes our words don't come out the way they should and we hurt people.  We want to show love for another person and it comes out with the wrong intention.  It is hard to apologise and ask forgiveness in such a time but we need to also learn to forgive ourselves.  We all make mistakes, we are all born from Adam's race and we need to admit that we get it wrong.  I quote from Elizabeth's book here:

"Like Paul, a woman dedicated to God - a woman who accepts God's will, fully trusts in him and courageously steps into her trials - is never too proud to connect to God in her trial and ask for and accept help from others as she yields to her testing.

Please don't fall prey to pride.  Look to God for His purpose, His approval, His understanding, His companionship and His "well done" as you faithfully wade into the river.  Don't worry what others think or might think.  Set your eyes on the Lord, Lean on Him.  Accept help.  Learn what He wants you to know."