September 9

“Don’t ever judge God’s love based on your circumstances.  Instead, evaluate your circumstances from the perspective of God’s love.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 9/6

This is putting your faith in action.  It takes faith out of the realm of platitudes and puts it into a way of living.  How could we ever get discouraged in the midst of any circumstance if we looked at the circumstance from the perspective of God’s love for us?  Our discouragement, then, must be directly related to our perceived “need” to be in control.  We have our lives planned out and then things get changed, and we don’t like that very much.  It’s the me, me, me way of life.  I discovered this in a big way when I gave birth to my last child and things didn’t go the way I wanted them to.  It was through that experience I had the belief shaken out of me that God’s love was based on my circumstances.  Since then, however, I’ve still had to battle this wrong way of looking at God’s love because the circumstances that lead me into this sin have come upon me in less dramatic ways.  I hardly notice that I’ve slipped into discouragement until I’m there and have become consumed by the resulting depression.  How much better it would be for me to keep the belief continually before me that God’s love and my circumstances are linked by the outcome both produce together in my life.  In accepting God’s love--including His “tough” love--I will grow in my faith, which in turn keeps me in God’s presence.

“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  James 1:2-4