James 1:3 (NLT) [bible-link v=”James+1%3A3&version=NLT” c=”light”]
For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.
“God, give me strength”, “God, give me courage”, “God, give me faith”, “God, give me patience”. I wonder if you have ever prayed a prayer like this? I know have…countless times.
What I’ve discovered about the character and nature of God is that very rarely will He just give me what I am asking for. Instead, He will use circumstances, environments and situations to mature, develop and grow these very things I have asked for.
So, when I ask for patience, there is every chance that in that week, I will find myself in a situation where I need to have patience. It could be in a doctor’s waiting room, in a queue waiting for food, or in traffic. The situation is natural, every day and almost ordinary, but God is using it as a chance to grow, mature, and develop me. In a way, He is just answering my prayer, but not in the way I think He should answer it.
If I am honest, I mostly overlook these occasions as frustrating, annoying and just plain inconvenient. It’s not until I reflect on them after, that I realise God was trying to do something in and through me in that moment and I failed to see the bigger picture. But so often, this is how God puts His ‘super’ on our ‘natural’.
Are there situations in your life that you have seen as nothing but trouble? Maybe, just maybe, if we look a little closer, there is something so much more powerful at work.
This also serves as a perfect reminder to always be aware of what we are praying.
