Seasons of Life: The Good and The Not So Good

Some folk have a crisis of faith because they're constantly fed "do this and God will do that for you" and "give to get" sermons but things happen differently.

This is what I mean...
* Give and it'll come back to you in a larger measure--house, car, canceled debt, lots of cash, etc. Instead, you struggle to make ends meet.

* Sacrificial offerings will be returned double fold. Yet, your lights were still turned off and your bills are past due.

* Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Yet, it's been years and the expected answer to your prayers hasn't come.

Note: When we delight ourselves on the Lord, His desires for us become the desires of our heart. The desires of our heart will line up with His will for us. It doesn't mean it's Christmas and our birthday and we get the things on our wish list.

* Just believe...all things are possible if you only believe. Yet, your body is still screaming with pain.

None of those things are wrong because God is able to do above and beyond anything we can ever imagine.

But, but, but God is not a genie nor is He Santa Claus. He is not obligated to move according to OUR wishes. He sees the bigger picture.

We need to know and understand that we move through seasons and all things work together for our good. 

What am I saying? There are prosperous seasons, seasons of not enough, crying seasons, hallelujah! seasons, seasons of health, seasons of illness, and "Lord, come and see about me!" seasons. Through every season, it all works together for our good.

It's great to preach about good things comin', being more than conquerors, being blessed and highly favored, being blessed in the city, being blessed in the fields, etc.

What about those "making" seasons? That season where we're sitting on the potter's wheel and it just keeps on spinning. How about the season when we're walking through the valley of the shadow of death and can't see a way out anywhere?

Yes, God is still there during those seasons, not to bring us out but to take us through.

Through these seasons, He's making us, shaping us, developing us, drawing us closer to Him, breaking us down to rebuild us, stripping our self-confidence and replacing it with reliance on Him, cutting away things...people who are weights holding us back from entering into our next level, etc.

Those are not feel good seasons and sometimes, we won't truly see what God was doing until we've moved out of it, look back, and think things over. One thing we will know for sure is that it all worked together for our good for we have been changed.

Just keepin' it real...