A Call to Potential

I've been thinking a lot about the necessity of hardship lately. The necessity of the trench, the dessert place or whatever you want to call it. Just the total need for hard things to encounter our lives. Hardship has a way of producing tenderness and compassion. It has a way of slowing the quick judgements and instead lending a helping hand.

Hardship places a God given mirror to our souls to show us what is really inside. The Lord has a way of taking a situation we may have once sneered at rather harshly, and dropping us in the same circumstance to awaken a new understanding. It's funny how when that happens we tend to understand with a bit more grace why people do the things they do.

Hardships are also given to purify us. Hardships are not punishment they are a call to arise to potential. How can we serve as we should and go where the Lord leads with things in our hearts the Lord longs to remove. Things we may not even be aware are there…..until things get hard. When the pressure is turned up and sleep is turned down. When answers don't come and the heavens are brass, that's when what is in our soul is revealed. Only then can we see clearly, as every security is removed and defense has been exhausted, and what is left is laid bare before the Father. It's not pretty but the purpose is to clearly identify what needs to be removed.

The amazing thing about that revelation is that it only illuminates the grace of Jesus. His awesome mercy, steadfast hand and unwavering patience with us. His tolerance of the questions, anger and confusion. His gentle touch and sweet voice when we come to the end of ourselves and the beginning of really trusting Him. The love and repentance that is unexplainable when all of a sudden the journey makes sense. The new-found compassion and love for people, the desire to pray for instead of talk about, the willingness to help, and encourage. The new awakening that has taken place that brings us one step closer to knowing the love of Jesus that is beyond comprehension. The personal revelation that He really is a wonderful Savior.

Don't lose heart, and don't despise the hand of the Father during this time. Because when you've come to a place of understanding and it all makes sense, the reality of the love Jesus has for you will be too much for your heart to hold. The, “If I knew then what I know now…”

Just trust Him. Trust His love for you, trust His Faithfulness, trust the plans He has for you.

The hard place is giving birth to who the Father has called you to be. The hard place is a place of refining, it's a call to potential, it's a place of purpose.

James 1:2-4 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Pastor Natalie Snider