How many time has this happened to you? You are moving along
smoothly in your Christian walk. You feel inspired to continue and go from
strength to strength. You have a zeal and a determination to do what the Lord
wants you to do. You are feeling motivated and feel like you can conquer the
earth and you ask the Lord to really move in you in power and might.
All of a sudden though your world comes crashing down and
you find yourself facing tests, deaths and problems. You become the opposite
of what you were before. You become confused, discouraged and often depressed,
and instead of having the zeal and determination you had before you now just
want to throw in the towel and give up completely.
If what I have described above fits the way you are right
now and you are wondering what in the world is happening, ask yourself this
question, “What have I been praying and asking the Lord to do in my life?”
I recently had a tremendous time of prayer with the Lord
and I felt motivated and inspired to give my all for Him. During the time of
prayer though I prayed, “Lord, crucify my flesh. Take what is not of you. I
give it to you, Lord. Holy Spirit, I invite you to take control now and to
cause your fruit to begin to manifest more and more in my life.”
My prayer time ended and a short while later I found that
zeal suddenly ending in a heap of irritation and anger as I faced a situation
that I had to yield to but really didn’t want to. Instead of submitting, for a
brief moment I wanted to dig in my heels and throw a tantrum. A few minutes
later though I repented and asked the Lord to forgive me and I sat thinking,
“What is going on here? This morning I felt like I could conquer the world.
Now suddenly it feels like everything is falling apart. What is happening,
Lord?”
All of a sudden the Holy Spirit said to me, “Why are you so
confused? I’m just answering your prayer!” and He reminded me of my prayer of
earlier on.
Immediate Work
Let me tell you, the moment you pray and give Him the
go-ahead to deal with you in any area He will say, “Sure, let’s go and revamp
you a little bit to enable the answer to come about.”
If you find yourself going through what seems like the
crucible of affliction right now, look up and rejoice because the Lord
considers you worthy enough to shape you into His image and to mold you into
the plan that He has for you life.
I can well remember how, when I first married Les, my
heart’s desire was to work for the Lord and go into ministry with my future
husband. I had this idea that ministry was something wonderful where people
looked up to you in awe and kind of hero-worshipped you; that the Lord put you
on a pedestal for everyone to admire. I was full of enthusiasm and zeal, but I
was soon to learn that there was little or no glory, and certainly no people
hero-worshipping you in ministry. In fact, it was a rude awakening to realize
that it often involved humility and being a nobody in order to give out to
others so that they could grow and be blessed by the Lord. He was starting
even then to shape me and mold me and to show me the many areas that needed to
be dealt with in order for me to be a real blessing to Him.
Perhaps you have this same zeal and determination burning
within you. Perhaps you have a desire to rise up in the Lord and do great
exploits for Him, but you find that this zeal is suddenly very short lived,
and instead you feel like you on a roller coaster ride with no way of getting
off. The tests and crunches are coming fast and furious and it seems like
almost daily there is something that is being exposed in you to make you feel
anything but someone of importance in the Lord’s Kingdom.
Deep Work
Why is it that the opposite seems to take place? It is
because the Lord is digging deep down inside of you to make you and mold you
into that vessel that will be fit for His use.
The Lord gave me a word for someone once which went
something like this: “I am doing a deep work in you at the moment. I am like a
gold miner that has to go down deep into the bowels of the earth and blast
away the rock in order to process it and make it into that beautiful bar of
gold. So my children, do not be despondent if you feel as though you are being
torn apart and shaken up. Look at the end result, for it will be a product of
great beauty.”
If you are feeling shaken up right now, this is what is
happening. The Lord sometimes needs to turn you inside out and remove those
‘things of the flesh’ that will stand in the way of you being effective in
ministry for Him. It is for your benefit as well, because until every
weaknesses have been dealt with the enemy can come along and destroy what God
is doing in your ministry in one easy step.
Think about it for a moment. If you have a problem with say
anger and bitterness in your life and you want to rise up in ministry, if that
area of the flesh is not dealt with you could easily be tempted and fail in
your ministry. It would be an easy thing for the enemy to set up a situation
where someone just ruffled your feathers in the right way and you lost your
temper, and your whole ministry could be jeopardized as a result. It would not
only destroy your ministry, but the bitterness would defile the lives of many
as well and wreak havoc in the lives of believers. It is not worth it. Every
area of failure and even sometimes strengths need to deal with so that you are
truly as putty in the hands of the Lord and He can direct you as and when He
desires, for maximum blessing and ministry to the Body.
Romans 9:21 says: 21 Does the potter not have authority
over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and another
to dishonor?
Allow the Lord to mold you and shape you, even as a potter
does when he makes some pottery. You need to be even as a patient on the
operating table. Let the Lord do what He wants to in your life and yield
yourself to it. Be encouraged, for He will not take you through things which
you are not capable of handling. Each trial and molding may be slightly
deeper, but within your capability of handling.
Now, what should your attitude be when the tests are
coming, the deaths are continual and you seem to be more on the floor with
your face in the dirt than even standing and looking on at the potential for
ministry in front of you? Let me deal with them quickly:
Teachable Attitude
Firstly, you need to maintain a teachable attitude so that
the Lord can continue to pour into you and make you grow speedily. As you
maintain that spirit He can give you revelation concerning which direction you
are to go in and He will reveal bit by bit those areas that need to be dealt
with so that you can be truly effective for Him.
Esteem Others Highly
Do you desire to be standing in the forefront like some
famous preachers are? Do you wish that for just one day or so you could be
standing in their shoes and preaching fiery messages and getting the people
stirred up? It is good to aspire to be the best for the Lord and to keep that
vision firmly fixed in your mind, but until you get there one of the best
attitudes to have is one of ‘esteeming others highly for the work sake,’ as
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians.
Why is this such a powerful thing to do? It is because you
are maintaining a humble attitude and being other-oriented, and by this very
act, the Lord will reach down and lift you up and He will be the one to exalt
you in due time. I have been there myself and have done just that – lifted up
others in ministry and esteemed them and spoken blessing on them because of
the benefit that they are being in the Body of Christ. Then quite unexpectedly
within a short space of time the Lord began to lift me up and people started
to recognize what the Lord had put in me.
The Lord said to me, “This is because you have humbled
yourself in my sight and in the sight of man. Now I am causing you to be
raised up.”
Don’t try and do it yourself. Don’t try and raise yourself
up and think you are so wonderful, for you will fall in pride. Let the Lord do
it for you, because then He will do it at the right time and in just the right
circumstances for you to be abundantly blessed. It is like a parent giving
their child an unexpected gift because they are proud of them and what they
have achieved.
Look Ahead With Joy
In conclusion, I want to consider one final attitude you
need to have when you are going through tumult in preparation for ministry. I
have touched on it briefly above, but you need to have the attitude of Jesus
when He was about to face the cross. It says in Hebrews 12:2:
2 Looking to Jesus the author and perfecter of [our]
faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus went through the ultimate in humility and literal
death in order to fulfill the call that the Father had on His life, but He
didn’t look at what He was going through at the moment and the trials and
pressures He faced at Gethsemane. He didn’t look at the fact that the Father
rejected Him and unloaded on Him the sins of the entire world, when He was
guiltless before then. No, He looked beyond all of that and He saw the end
product, and He saw that it was priceless.
Where are you right now? How far are you prepared to go
with the Lord? The amount that you desire to rise up in power with Him is in
direct proportion to the pressures that will come upon you to mold you into
that end product. The Lord will not force you. He gives you a choice, and if
you should decide to pull out before He has completed the work because you
can’t handle it, He will not condemn you. He will continue to love you and use
you as He can, but you will not become that end product of beauty that you
could become.
Do you think you can stand the pressure? I think you can,
and you will become a beautiful produce in the Lord’s hands and you will stand
out as a shining example of His love and grace in your life! Push on now and
look ahead and see the end product that the Lord has for you.
Testimonies
"Your words blessed me so much. Lately everything the Lord
has been giving me, has been coming to me by death or a good dose of humility.
No more cutting corners. But in everything the Lord is good. I just wanted to
tell you how much your article blessed me."
- R.J., Oklahoma
"The articles that are sent out by the team are so timely.
It never occurred to me that anyone else was going through these kind of
things as in this your posting. Your posting surely is food for thought."
- J.W., North Carolina
"Praise the Lord, this was right on time. I just was ready
to throw in the towel. I was just now fed up, and saying to my self is this
even worth it, I'm rejected just about any and every where I go and for two
years I've been taught by God through through the Holy ghost. I had a lot of
zeal five years ago and now I'm wondering If God called me at all. Its Like
everyone around me are ministers, evangelist and the like, but I'm still on
the potters wheel. I know with God everything is in his timing, but sometimes
I just want to be used by God and I need discipline direction and the need to
know his voice. So thanks this was truly a blessing."
- T.H., New York
