Good morning, world. Things are looking pretty good from the front porch of my farm in Virginia today. It’s a gloomy morning and they’re calling for snow but you couldn’t prove it by me. My Heart is far from being gloomy and the warmth I feel from His Spirit could heat the farmhouse. I don’t just wake up joyful and I don’t live a life without bumps in the road. But the one thing I do, and I do it well, is I seek the face of the One Who Created me and everything else always falls into place because I do. His Word has all the answers for Life and all we have to do to “get it right” is to spend time with Him and patiently wait to be Instructed. He has complete control over it all. He leaves no stone left unturned. He leaves nothing up to “chance”. He called me by name and I belong to Him. When you look at it that way, how could we ever become gloomy and cold?

The longer I live, the sadder I become over Christians that just don’t seem to “get it right”. They fret. They worry. They play the blame game. They’re quick to judge everything from the sins of others to a spontaneous revival on a college campus in Kentucky. They critique your words and make them about themselves because the world revolves around them, and they don’t even realize they’re being baited by Satan when they do. They run from the mention of Repentance and somehow they convince themselves that with Christ, there is no need to repent at all. They speak as if they’re being picked on by God…and they live like “victims” too – instead of the Warriors they were Created to be. They live gloomy and cold lives and don’t seem to know where to go to find Peace…and yet they say they can’t wait for Jesus to come back as if He’s coming to bail them out of their woes. They whine to everyone who will listen about what’s going on in their lives and they’ll pray like they don’t believe what they’re praying for could possibly come true. How is it possible that they don’t Know that nothing is out of control for the God who sits on the Throne? He knows the Beginning and the End. He IS the Beginning and the End. This is the Key to Peace through it all.

Romans 8:28 is often quoted as a means to comfort someone going through a Trial. It says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”. It doesn’t say that no matter how you live, how you love, if you spend time with the Living God or not, He will miraculously spin things into Good regardless of the condition of your Heart! He’s not a genie in a bottle, He’s a God with a Master Plan that would blow our minds if we could see it on this side of Heaven. In terms of Trials, nobody can come close to what poor Job endured. He lost everything, including his children and yet, Job still Trusted God. He still Praised God. He still Loved God…and everything about Job’s life and all of his trials is still talked about today. They worked together for Good. I don’t know why God allowed the deep valleys in my own Life BUT I do know that they had Purpose and I’m seeing that Purpose played out in living color today. It doesn’t take perfection to see results like that. It doesn’t take a Christian superhero to see results like that. What it takes is humility…the kind of humility that drives us to ask Him to search our Heart. It takes Repentance…the kind of Repentance that is driven by the desire to be found Pleasing to the King. And it takes Love for God…not a simple puppy love for the big guy in the sky, but a Love that is far bigger and more profound than the love we feel for anybody else in our lives. This is the Key to Soaring through the Trials.

It’s gloomy outside today and it might just snow but all is well with my Soul after my Time with the One Who died for me. I searched for Answers. I Repented of some things and I asked Him to Search my Heart for anything that could come between me and my God. As for all the ones who don’t seem to “get it right”, I’m here to love them, to spur them on, and to get them headed in the Right Direction so that all things in their lives will work together for Good too.

How about you?