Good morning, world. Things are looking pretty good from the front porch of my farm in Virginia today. It doesn’t feel much like Spring this morning but Spring is definitely in the air and the farm is slowly coming to life for the season. When I met with the One Who “summons me by name” I thought about all the “treasures of darkness” and all the “riches stored in secret places” that He’s sprinkled into my life to drive home the fact that He is the Lord of my Life and the One with all the Answers. It’s not possible to look at the Journey of my Life and NOT see that HE sustains me, and it’s not possible for me to refrain from Praising Him because of it. The trials have Good Purpose in His Eyes and if it took an abundance of Trials for me to be Shaped into a Vessel to be used by Him, it’s all been worth it. Isn’t that the way you look at your trials too?

Sometimes the world gets the wrong impression of people of Faith because we “consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds” because they miss the underlying Purpose. Only a deranged mind would jump up and down and celebrate the trials and tribulations we face! But there’s a BIG difference between being happy that we’re in pain and being Joyful because we know that we’re being Refined through fire to be used by the King. God can’t use “wussies” in His Army, so He’ll make sure that the ones He “summons by name” get Strengthened through the Boot Camp of Life…IF they’re willing. He tests their endurance and their loyalty over and over again. He makes sure they’ll be obedient Soldiers so that when He Speaks they listen without question. Sometimes He uses every Exercise imaginable to strengthen them in ways they never dreamed of, and He’s inclined to repeat the process if there is any doubt they’ll succumb to “torture” by the enemy. The Lord’s Army DOES “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” People of Faith don’t celebrate the trials…we celebrate the VICTORIES in “heavenly places” instead.

Once in a while, it feels like we get sabotaged when the trials and tribulations catch us off guard and they seemingly come out of nowhere! Poor Job lost everything from his children to his wealth in a matter of minutes. If anybody would be inclined to believe they’d been forgotten by God and unfairly attacked by the enemy it would be Job…”the most righteous” man on earth. But God always has a Plan for the pain – “I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.” Job was thrown into that fire in ways you and I don’t even want to think about, but he knew that God was the source of everything in his life, and although he wasn’t happy with the journey He considered it “pure joy.” In the end, Job was restored with a double measure and God was glorified through the mess – all because Job NEVER gave up…he was strengthened and readied and he persevered – “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking NOTHING.” If there’s a measure of how we finish the race in this Journey called Life, it will be found in the Trials. It’s easy to give God the glory for the daffodils in the Spring – it’s an entirely different story to give Him Glory through the pain, but it’s through the pain that we learn to Persevere and it’s IN the pain that we are reminded that “I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”

I can’t begin to count the Treasures in my life – the sweet ones that bring me joy in my time on this side of Heaven – and all those treasures that came “in the darkness”…those “riches that were stored in secret places” …the Journey that made me Strong…the Journey that pushed me into Persevere-mode…the Journey that Refined me by fire so that I could be a Vessel worthy of being used by the King. I consider it Pure Joy.

How about you?