Dear Mike,

To know the will of God is not a simple task. I have come to terms with His Will. Mike, the faith I used to have in this world is gone. I was an action person, very confident and informed, and now all of that is gone. Every time I pray I let His will be first. I am no longer trusting in myself like I used to do. My selfish knowledge has come to nothing. My flesh gets hurt mostly. I am working out my own my salvation. I am hoping in the mercy of God.

Your brother in Christ.
N____

Good morning N____,

When God is humbling us, we are being physically humiliated and “crushed to power”, but it is at that very same time that we are the closest to our Lord. You are right, it is not an easy “simple task,” but the reward of enduring this process is worth any suffering we may endure. God will make it clear that we had nothing to do with our salvation and our deliverance from our trials. Our strength is to be still and watch the Lord’s deliverance.

Exo 14:13  And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.

This statement was made by our Lord to Israel at the shores of the Red Sea, when the Egyptian army was bearing down upon them, and there was no apparent way of escape.

1Co 10:13  There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

God does not give us a “way to escape” our trials ‘that we may be able to avoid it’; rather “that you may be able to bear it.” Noah went through the flood, Israel went through the Red Sea, the three Hebrew children went through the fiery furnace, Daniel went through the lion’s den, and Christ endured the cross. Our God is a consuming fire, and there is not way we can avoid going through that fiery sword which “guards the way of the Tree of Life.”

Gen 3:24  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Christ made it clear that He is that “way”, and He also made it clear that we would drink the cup He drank and be baptized with His baptism.

Mat 20:20  Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping [ him], and desiring a certain thing of him.
Mat 20:21  And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.
Mat 20:22  But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
Mat 20:23  And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.

But it will all seem like a small price to pay when the reward is presented to the kings and priests of God at the blessed and holy first resurrection.

2Ti 2:12  If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Keep your eyes on that prize, and you will soon realize that the trials of this life and the result of those trials have all been worked out before any of us were ever born.

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.

“Your fellow servant, who keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book,” (Rev 19:10 and 22:9).

Mike