Verse
The punishment you brought me through was the best thing that could have happened to me, for it taught me Your ways.
Psalms 119:71 TPT
Good News
Life is not all plain sailing and threats and difficulties arise. God does not cause these but uses the difficulties to strengthen our relationship with Him, and get us exercising our faith.
Reflection
The present fall and then rise in Covid-19 infections teaches us a fundamental principle: when everything is going well, we become more careless.
This is our experience of isolating or gathering, which is about being socially responsible — or negligent. How rigorous we are about maintaining a good sanitisation regime is about being practically diligent — or lax.
Psychology tells us that how we perceive the threat — increasing, or decreasing — drives how we react to and safeguard against danger.
So what happens in the spiritual realm? Our spiritual awareness, we could argue from Scripture, is an overarching influence that governs all of the other strands. The Holy Spirit in our lives doesn’t tell us how to live or what is morally unacceptable. That is much more the voice of religion.
But He leads our thinking, gives us prompts, nudges our decisions and gives us an inward witness of what is good or what might be a danger.
But He can only do this when we listen. When we give Him space. When we ask. We have to make the running, ask the questions prayerfully, seek wisdom — and then it is up to us to put it into practice.
How much do we need His guidance? “All the time,” comes the ready answer, but of course our perception is that we need guidance more when difficulty threatens and less when the going seems easy. And that’s the danger, right there. Complacency and self-sufficiency are what lead us away from faith, from seeking God, being open to His leading and — most damaging and sinful — from knowing our dependency on Him
Take away
What is God teaching you about His ways through the difficulty you are battling with right now? How could you use this to encourage someone else to exercise faith?
Link
For a prayer based on this verse, go over to www.glowweobley.com