Part of God’s dealings with us can be explained in terms of training. Now here’s the rub… training can be painful and exhausting. You have to burn 3500 calories just to burn off one pound in weight, that would take a 5 mile walk and some more, that’s why so many settle to be just armchair athletes! He is looking for men and women who are at His command to do with as He likes, and to go where He chooses. But before we become completely available to God, much has to be disciplined out of us. When we enter God’s school, we find ourselves now and again facing some discipline to reason with ourselves and to supply ourselves with strong arguments against doing the thing God has set before us. We finally decide that we need not do it. We turn along some other path and discover two unpleasant facts. First, we notice that we have lost a certain sensitiveness to God’s presence and will. We make more mistakes, we lose more opportunities. We are of less service to others. Secondly, it is not long before we find ourselves facing the same discipline in a new form. Instead of staying on the exercise cycle we move onto the cross-trainer! People who run away from their difficulties always meet them again. When faced with some difficult or trying situation, we have to remember first of all that God knows all about it, and that He will give us the strength we need for overcoming it. Thirdly, we may assure ourselves that God means us to gain victory over it to fit us for bigger tasks. He prunes us by difficulties, that we may bear much fruit.
John.