Trials and Tribulations

Acts 14:22 Establishing and strengthening the souls and the hearts of the disciples, urging and warning and encouraging them to stand firm in the faith, and (telling them) that it is through many hardships and tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

This might not be the verse that you want to see today, but it might be the verse you need to see today.   I think that there is confusion, at least I was a bit confused, about what exactly would happen to me once I had a serious relationship with God.

When we went from casually dating and entered into our own personal relationship.  I thought that life would be significantly easier and that favor and blessings would just chase me down the street.  I had in my mind that rainbows, sunshine and skipping would be my knew attitude towards everything, and sorry to say this, that is not at all what happened. 

I am not NOT saying this to bash having a relationship with God at all; choosing to have a personal relationship with my Father was and is the best decision I have ever made in my life.  I love God with all of my heart, and would never try to dissuade anyone from knowing Him or letting Him love you, but I also think we need to be truthful. 

Life isn’t going to be all roses and gumdrops after accepting Christ.  There is going to be some time of pain, suffering and tears.  You are going to be lost for a moment of time, but this feeling of lost won’t be like you were before you committed your life to Christ, because now you have a savior.  Now, you have direction that you didn’t have before.  Before you were trying to soothe and heal yourself from your hurt and pain, and that didn’t work, now, you will be healed by the ultimate healer, God.  But you still have to walk through the healing.

Yes, there are amazing things that happen instantly when we accept Christ as our savior.  We instantly are forgiven, we instantly are made righteous, we instantly have eternity with God in Heaven, we instantly become the temple of God, and we instantly inherit Jesus’s birth right.   But that doesn’t mean we understand what we have, or how to live in this new space.   

And that’s ok!!

In this verse in Acts 14:22 it says Establishing and strengthening the souls and the hearts of the disciples, urging and warning and encouraging them to stand firm in the faith, and (telling them) that it is through many hardships and tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

This verse is no longer a doom and gloom verse, that it could be, instead it’s a verse that says, what’s happening with you, is normal!!  It’s supposed to happen.  You are going to experience trials and tribulations, we have been told that many times in the Bible, so we shouldn’t be surprised when they come around anymore.   We actually need them.  I know, who needs them?  Well we do.

When we enter into a trial or tribulation we are entering into a period to strengthen and encourage us.  We are entering into a time where we are growing in our relationship with God but also as people.  When we have problems and things go wrong in our lives we are growing in those experiences.  We are being prepared for what our calling is from God.  I know super spiritual and nice words, but ultimately it hurts.  Yes, it does.

I have spent many a night, day, hour or weekend, crying out to God for help.  Asking God to remove the situation that I found myself in, or to just ease my pain.  I can say from my experience, I had to walk through the pain, tears and the situation, so I could learn the lesson on the other side.  But as it says in Acts 14:22, what did happen to me is when I was on the other side; I was stronger in my faith and much closer to God and His kingdom.

Every problem we have from the smallest to the biggest you can imagine is meant for us to grow in one way or another.  I know for sure that we are meant to trust God.  Trust Him with whatever level of trust you can give Him at the time.  As you walk through the situation you will be able to trust Him more, as you see Him show up in the problem.  You will see God reveal Himself to you throughout whatever problem you are going through. 

Maybe you are in a time where you are having a problem with money.  You could be wondering how am I going to pay my mortgage, groceries or even put gas in the car to get to work, all of these things happen for us to trust God.  Don’t be surprised if somehow, someway, it gets figured out and you are left there wondering, how that happened… God!

I can’t tell you how many times small things like this have happened in my life, and I am left thinking how did that happen, well it happened because I serve a God that though I walk through trials and tribulations, He will always find a way out for me.   God must be given all the glory for what He is doing and has done in your life, always!

The kingdom of God isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, where I would be skipping through the daisies under a rainbow filled sky, but it is filled with love and change.  The relationship I have with God is filled with, you can do this and I love you my precious child.  It is filled with encouragement and love.  It is filled with silent victories and long standing prayers, yet to be answered, but most importantly, it is filled with God. 

My God’s kingdom, is not one that is to be taken lightly, it is the place to drop all of who you were and become all of who He is.   When you are given the opportunity to transform into the image of the one who is, and will always be perfect, there is going to be trials and tribulations, because we are far from perfect, and even farther from deserving to have this opportunity.  It might be difficult to enter into the kingdom of God, but the pain and the challenges are completely worth going through, for the life in God, on the other side!