For most of our lives, we have been told that we are made overcomers, by the word of our testimony.

There’s no way that I can tell all of you where I have been, and how far He has brought me from.

We’ve all wanted to be like Him; to be like Jesus, was our main theme from the beginning.

I don’t know if we really understood what that might bring about in our lives; how long that journey might be; how much it cost.

We were always taught that God knows our heart. We really believed that.

Somewhere along the way, we realized that we didn’t know it; that there was much that was buried and also hidden deep within ourselves.

“Search me Lord!” was not just a thought we came into; it was a reality we came to understand. It would take the Holy Ghost to reveal who we really were, and what our intentions were; and the secrets of our hearts.

Aren’t you glad today, that He truly does know what we are made of?

And just how much we can bear and take?

It’s a hard concept for some who God knew us long before we did. He called us, and he chose us, long before we even drew our first breath.

There is no shallowness with God. Everything about Him is deep and beyond our knowledge. That is, until we really come to know Him and He shares those things with us. There are far more spiritual places in Him; if He wishes.

Is it that somewhere, the price became too much. Is it even possible that our sincere desire for the deeper things of God waned.

Perhaps we were distracted by what others thought, or wished us not to think about.

It’s almost strange now, that one of the most quoted statements of our first beginnings, was to “keep your eyes on Jesus.”

Early on in our walk, those who had come before us, from their own experience, told us just how vital this would be. Not, to get your eyes on people.

We don’t like to call attention to our suffering. But Paul did. I think he intended for us to know just what we might expect if we sought to be mightily used by God.

He was quite open to us about it; God intended for us to know about it. Christ was our first example of what it might take to truly follow Him.

I’m not so sure, that we understood, that to be like Him, meant we would have to go through the same things that He did.

God already knew what we were worth, and how much He could trust us. He did know our heart, and how that no matter how many roads we traveled down and back, our honest and real desire, was to love Him, and be used by Him.

You see, what others might think about these things, really dim in light of the real experience. It may have taken many years, for us to fully grasp, that it had always been about us, and Him.

In the end, it’s not about someone else really. It’s between us.

There are dark days; Jesus had them, and so did all of His apostles. We should think on the good things; but it was never intended that we should ignore or not share the other.

It perhaps sounds mundane, to say that until we have walked in someone else’s shoes, we have no real clue about their journey, and what it may have cost them.

Suffer awhile, and you’ll be less judgmental.

I was due for a true house-cleaning. Without Him and all of heaven, we wouldn’t be here to testify.

 

~ Robert Blackburn

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Robert Blackburn

 

 

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