Have to be honest, it’s been a particularly hard season around here the last few months.  The pressures of life have been  particularly heavy on me.  My word for the year, Faith, has been tested often.  Reading Acts 16, I see Paul and Silas casting a demon out of a young girl, which leads to them being attacked by a mob, “beaten with rods”, and then thrown in jail and locked in stocks.  Verse 25 is what prompted me to write this morning – “about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”   I want that passion and faith that rises above the situation.

At some point, I had made a note in the margin next to that verse that simply said “praise in the face of persecution”.  I realize that joy and peace are not dependent on circumstances.  Too often, I live upside down.  My peace is a direct reflection of my financial security.  Faith is confidence in what we don’t see, and I am coming to grips with the reality that my faith is weak.

So I am choosing faith today that God is truly greater than my circumstances, that He is not surprised by the trials and heartbreaks of this life, and that He is using the grinding of this world to refine me into a vessel worthy of the high calling of God.  The purification of silver and gold only comes under extreme heat.

Today I will pray, sing hymns to God, and have faith, even in the midst of this.

Grace and Peace