Count It All Joy

Count It All Joy:

Jas 1:2-3 My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into different kinds of temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith works patience.

Heb 12:6 for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives."

Heb 12:11 Now chastening for the present does not seem to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised by it.

How often do we think we understand a concept, only to be jolted by new realizations of our own ignorance. Most of us are given daily opportunities to advance our spiritual understanding and blessing by acknowledging the small chastisements and trials sent our way or allowed by God to teach us and guide us and bless us. Too often I have chosen not to see their significance and fail to act aggressively to grasp and embrace and appropriate their value.

Then some big, huge, horrible thing comes our way … completely beyond our ability to deal or comprehend and we give it over to God because there is no other hope and He reveals our short comings and lavishes us with blessings and embraces us with His love. Then we feel stupid and see how easy it would have been to embrace each day those smaller trials. We kick ourselves for having missed out on all that God had for us.

But we glory and revel in our new understanding of God, an understanding that goes wildly beyond doctrine or rules or catechisms or creeds. We stare blankly at the Protestant expounding why Catholics should not use Rosaries or at the Catholic pontificating how Protestants are so far off not believing the wine is actually the blood of Christ “before” in enters one’s mouth. We wonder what that has to do with anything.

We think, “Don’t you understand how unbelievably fantastic and wonderful God is? What is wrong with you!”

But yesterday, before this big, huge, horrible thing came your way, you pondered infant baptism, whether tongues were for today and if 10% was really a required tithe.

Mat 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit! For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
Mat 5:4 Blessed are they that mourn! For they shall be comforted.
Mat 5:5 Blessed are the meek! For they shall inherit the earth.
Mat 5:6 Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness! For they shall be filled.

Some of us understand this more easily than others. One person’s big, huge, horrible thing may seem only a mere inconvenience to another. But what ever it takes, God will help us understand ourselves and understand Him as well.

Ok, so post BHHT we stop seeing big, huge, horrible things the same way we use to, and that is very good. But now we alertly ferret out those little trials in order to mine each gem, refine the gold, appropriate the wisdom … that is even better.

by BigHugeThing