Do you really want patience?  Do you really want to see what God has in store for you around the mountain bend?  Can you stand still as the heat intensifies, encircling you, closing off escape, threatening your toes beginning to disturb your lungs?  What does trust mean to you, certainly it doesn’t mean that you will believe even when the ship capsizes below the waves, leaving you alone, cold, tired, swimming in your best recollection of the direction you left shore?  What happens when the jars are empty, the wells dry?  Will you stand after doing everything that you could have done, grasping tightly to the knowledge of the powerful God that you serve?

What is he asking of you?  Does it require that your bank accounts hover near zero, holding on, jobless, penniless, no back up, savings or perceived security left to cling upon?  Must you lose your health, when it has always been your sanctuary, the long runs, effective in clearing your mind of the worries of each day?  What about the friends, who’ve avoided you since the fall, the family who have forgotten your number, moved away leaving no forwarding contact?  Has the church risen to take their place, brothers and sisters in Christ, moving in to fill the vacuum left in your abandonment?  How about your spouse, has he or she stepped up to provide, encourage, support and defend you as you struggle to make it to the dawn of God’s Will?  Have you the courage to live or die upon God’s intervention or abstinence, knowing fully that He will move at exactly the appropriate time for His Perfect Will?  Do you trust Him, even unto death?  Gosh, my friend, I never thought that this thing, this Christianity, this faith was that serious.  I never believed that I would be confronted with such deep, probing question.  I never thought that the tests would be this hard or that they would really provide the circumstantial impetus to reveal my character, my love, my honest, unadulterated trust and love for God.  What have I gotten myself into?

Wouldn’t it be easier to have faith in God right now, without the testing, while you have assets and security and no question of tomorrow’s sunrise?  Or must we be tested as humans, never accepting, believing and holding onto faith until progressively, intensely challenged?  I wish that I had believed, but I am glad for the opportunity to show my mettle.  For each of us may speak oddly of Peter, never having had the opportunity to deny Christ.  Who will stand with Him, even when He is seated in heaven?  Will we declare or deny and isn’t that the reason for all this glorious opportunity.  We have the chance to live as Prince and Priest for God through Christ.  Who among us will accept that chance?  For the time is now and you my friend have been chosen of God for the purpose of your making.  It is not a question of who will be tested or who will go through sufficient struggle for each of us has the same choice and task.  The question is will you.  In Jesus’ Name.