Prayer, Words of Endurance
Bless our God, O peoples!
Give him a thunderous welcome!
Didn’t he set us on the road to life?
Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch?
He trained us first,
passed us like silver through refining fires,
Brought us into hardscrabble country,
pushed us to our very limit,
Road-tested us inside and out,
took us to hell and back;
Finally he brought us
to this well-watered place.
PSALM 66:8-12 (THE MESSAGE)
I’ve learned that rebuilding a shattered perspective isn’t a one-time deal. When we come to a point in life where our perspective has been shattered in a big way and we have picked up the pieces and learned to look through the lens of a more realistic and healthy perspective – we tend to think we are done. We want to think we are done – but the reality is we are not! We don’t have all the answers after one, two or even three times of having our perspectives shattered. It is a process – the process of the refiners fire.
I know this may be a hard truth to face but it is not a bad thing. You see God is in the refining business. He is all about training us to see life from His perspective. So our journey through life will give us a number of situations that will challenge our dearest, most tightly held human perspectives. Each time our world is shaken up we will need to reevaluate some part of our perspective on life. Ultimately growing into a mature perspective that will help us endure the storms of life.
I have also learned that I am continually in the process of learning and maturing – of being transformed by Him until I get to the end of this earthly journey. The process is hard and painful at times but at the same time it is a beautiful thing.
Think for a moment about what a broken piece of pottery that has been pieced back together looks like. It will be marred – have visible cracks. It is the same with us. Our brokenness will still show but it is through the brokenness that God’s light shines through.
Ultimately I have learned that I can trust God when my perspective shatters knowing that He is the Potter and I am the clay. There is no other place I would rather be than on the Potters wheel being shaped and refined by the hands of the Potter – because I have learned that I can trust the Potter.
And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.
We are the clay, and you are the potter.
We all are formed by your hand.
ISAIAH 64:8 (NLT)
On the Journey with You,
Dave Dravecky