By Dr. ABEL HARA
Job 23:10 But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
Isaiah 43:2
2 When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.
If you are a human with a beating heart, chances are there is somewhere where you are either going through, have gone through or will go through pain. The good news is that God is faithful and we can count on Him even in the midst of hurt. He is, after all, our Very present help in time of need.
A close friend of mine once shared the words “God will always be faithful in your life” with me about half a decade ago. I embraced those words and made them my own and I remain tireless in sharing them with those in my sphere of influence; not as a Christian or spiritual cliche, but a truth I have personally seen and experienced in my own life and in the lives of those I am privileged to have met. To hear and be taught is one thing—to personally know and understand is the ultimate.
I quickly learnt that in life, even the best theology can fail you if it lacks the authenticity of experiential knowledge. There is need for what we embrace and hold onto and build our lives upon to be tested and tried in the fire so that as we live it out and impart to others, we share from a place of overflow and incomparable conviction and authenticity; sharing not merely from the overflow of our libraries, but more importantly from the overflow of what is our hearts, having been tested and tried in the context of our own lives and made even more ‘real’ to us.
Allow me to give you some perspective: About a year ago, I started practicing the art of journaling as a way of documenting my thoughts, reflections, vision and the things I am learning. Writing down what I am learning and expressing my thoughts on paper has been a part of who I am for so many years, but one year ago, I decided to be more intentional in this regard. I realized that in certain seasons of my life I would be ignorant and not consciously aware of testimonies and the wondrous things God was doing in my life because I never took time to actively express my desires and goals in a written form.
I didn’t have a literary Altar of Remembrance serving as a continual and daily reminder of God’s faithfulness, and therefore I would easily get shaken by the storms and challenges of life. Prior to developing this habit, I would write down some of my overall expectations for the year as an overarching guide to help me channel my energy into relevant avenues, but I was yet to begin applying this discipline on a day to day basis where I could take time to consistently document my life and insert specific dates with prayer requests, Thanksgiving, goals, inspiration and conversations with God in prayer as well as the things I was learning through the people around me.
As I grew in this habit and it became an increasingly important part of who I am, I began to discover something: somehow, I was able to better understand and relate to the words “Write the vision and make it plain among tablets, that he may run that reads it...” (Hosea 2:2). Today, more than a year later, I was going through my journal and I noticed a specific date where I had inserted a footnote. Before you ask why I am talking about writing so much, I must admit that I am such a thinker.
Most of the time, my world lives in my head so writing helps me process my thoughts and preserve them for reflection as well as appreciation of how far I have come and how faithful God has been. Sometimes When I am feeling discouraged, I come across something I wrote many years ago when I was younger and the innocence and freshness of my zeal and relative inexperience ministers to me at a personal level.
I see a picture of me when I hadn’t experienced certain challenges and I was full of hope that was relatively untainted by the experience of some of the harsher aspects of life. This challenges me to be grateful not only for how far I have come but also how much further I can go—with God. It also reminds me to maintain hope and not become embittered my circumstances; or as someone else would put it, loving like you have never been hurt. This implies drawing wisdom from the past so as to not repeat it while maintaining and cultivating a pureness of heart than only God can inspire. When all is said and done, it’s all about God......
To be continued....
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