Every Lesson counts:

by Ivan Venter
(South-Africa)

With all that life has to offer and give us, we are constantly reminded of all that life throws at us that make the journey perilous and dangerous. For most, and certainly me as well sometimes feel like my character falls short as I explode hurting those standing inside the blasting area. Not even talking about the danger of taking the risk of going after your dreams and getting bursts of negativity and people not believing that you could do it. With all of this going on we sometimes find ourselves in the corner shrinking away trying to find some kind of glimmer that the next few seconds will hold some kind of rest and peace, while we struggle in our thoughts with 'why?'.

When listening to children of God talking like this most feel that they have failed as God's children, disappointing Him at every corner. This however is not the case, lets read the following scripture and trust the Holy Spirit for the direction that we need in our characters.

Psa 107:23-32 “They who go down to the sea in ships, who do business in great waters; (24) these see the works of Jehovah and His wonders in the deep. (25) For He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up its waves. (26) They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. (27) They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and all their wisdom is swallowed up. (28) And they cry to Jehovah in their trouble, and He brings them out of their troubles. (29) He makes the storm a calm, so that its waves are still. (30) And they are glad because they are quiet; so He brings them to their desired haven. (31) Let them praise Jehovah for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the sons of man! (32) And let them exalt Him in the congregation of the people, and praise Him in the gathering of the elders.”(Modern King James)

Here we encounter a story that in most cases describe most of our lives. We go out into the next step in our lives full of encouragement and excitement. We see all that God can do in our lives, to put it bluntly we are having a ball. But this does not last for the 'winds' of live starts blowing pulling and throwing us from this side to that. When we describe it like this we can identify and understand what these seamen were experiencing. This however is not the whole story. Reading verse 25 we see the most strange thing happening, God commands and raises the winds that lifts the waves. Shocking, I do not think so because it is shown that growth does not occur without some sort of applicable resistance.

1Pe 1:6-7 “in which you greatly rejoice, yet a little while, if need be, grieving in manifold temptations; (7) so that the trial of your faith (being much more precious than that of gold that perishes, but being proven through fire) might be found to praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,”(Modern King James)

The things that we call life in other words does not just happen but occurs with something in mind. I'm of opinion that we are constantly being shaped and taught by the Holy Spirit how God wants us to life. How we respond to these lessons though will give us the equipment within the Holy Spirit to help, teach and encourage others going through life. To understand this method of teaching we have to look at ancient Israel and the way that rabbi's taught their students. A rabbi would go around living while his students would closely follow on behind him. They did this because the formal structure that we understand today as class did not exist back then. The classroom was anywhere that the rabbi was, the lesson anything that the rabbi could use to explain his point of view to his students.

I believe that the Holy Spirit works in similar ways in our lives. We read and study the way God wants us to live in the Bible get up and continue with our day. Something however happens from the time that we get up after reading the Bible and picking it up again the following day/Bible study time. The thing that happens is class! And while we do not acknowledge this we waver and blame everything and everyone around us for the things that happen in our lives, all the while we prayed for the Holy Spirit to teach us God's ways.

The wonderful thing about God's way of teaching at the end of the day is embedded in the trust that we have in Him. Referring back to the story in Psalm we see that the sailors tried everything before crying out to God and thus putting their trust in God and not their own capabilities. Its always about trust, giving our authority over our lives to God.

I want to challenge you to start looking at life from a different point of view. Take the time this week to look back on your day, ask the Holy Spirit to highlight all the lessons that He wanted you to learn.

I leave you with this thought, if we say that our lives is in Gods hands, do we really mean it if we moan and groan at the sign of Gods lessons in our lives?