The Fiery Trial
The Fiery Trial… it’s a test.
If we could only remember that.
We must have learned by now, that we are never going to be able to grasp the things of God or His Word, unless we pray for understanding.
Often times, the Lord’s disciples did not get the things He spoke about.
It was later, when the crowds were gone and they were alone with Him, they asked Him to explain it to them.
We too can cause ourselves a lot of grief and heartache, in trying to figure these things out on our own.
We are talking about a fiery trial; a truly heated kind of test.
I do love the way some things are worded in the scriptures we read.
Most would agree, that there are some differences in perhaps what most of us have read throughout our journey.
There are many translations provided by men. But may we say in a nice way, it’s not about the translation; it’s about how much the Spirit shares with you and how much you let Him teach you about what is there.
True revelation, comes from the Holy Spirit of God; true understanding, the same Spirit.
Think it not strange. Even though it is strange. Well, it is. If we can be human for a moment here, it’s like something crazy is going on.
Something odd or almost unreal at times. Again, we are talking about the fiery kind of trial.
It’s like you have been bombarded with everything coming at you at once; it’s like somebody pulled out all the stops to bring you down.
It’s about time that we deal with that issue this new age kind of thinking tries to counter with.
That God would not allow this kind of thing to happen to us; He doesn’t treat us that way.
It’s about building up our Faith. Perhaps, with all due respect, there wasn’t enough teaching done about these fiery trials.
It isn’t a secret that in the early days here, when someone went through such a thing, they were accused.
Surely the person must have sinned or brought this heaviness on themselves!
It wasn’t until more of us had been through our own fire, that we learned to get in there and lift-up that person and encourage them. Perhaps, after we had gotten rid of our own dross.
It hurts. It’s often pure agony and an intense loss or believing in yourself or anything else for that matter.
The pressure is so hard, you almost feel like giving up. This idea that we might think less of people for even admitting such feelings, might be about pride and projecting self-righteousness.
No one should say that we should keep all these things to ourselves. That’s not scriptural.
The true body of Christ, is supposed to know what’s going on with the rest of the members. However, in a real fiery trial, we can feel we can’t even talk about it to God.
Trusting in God does not come easy for all of us. Having the faith to believe Him for certain things, can often times be a process.
It might have to do with our upbringings and the kinds of things we witnessed; the example others set before us.
Or some of those hard things, when we asked God to change it or do something about it, and He didn’t. It’s taken a lot of sickness and suffering for some of us.
I have learned to depend on God when there was nothing else I could depend on. My faith increased, when the way was simply, impossible.
Although it tarries, wait for it. It will not tarry. It took a long time to understand that.
It won’t tarry forever. One day, it is going to happen, no matter what.
That meant, that we might have to wait a long time; that it was only going to come at the time that God appointed it for.
The questions we need to ask, when the smoke clears from the fire, are,
Am I stronger today than I was before?
Am I better equipped to do the work I’m so sure He has called me to do in this hour?
Can the Spirit truly move through me, with less friction?
And… has my hearing improved?
~ Robert Blackburn
So true. There are times when a trial does seem very strange andunique to us. And we think, surely nobody else has ever gone through something like this. I gotta be the only person in earth that has these kinds thoughts or feelings or anxiety. I gotta be that 1 in a million cases, surely. But the scriptures say that they are sudden, most of the time unexpected and somehow we believe that this particular trial is not spiritual in any way. I am guilty as charged. I struggle with that but trying to accept it is a test!