BeyondSeeLevel

Often times we will come to God making our  request known unto Him. We hope to stand at one end of the hallway of our prayer as God stands at the other end with blessing in hand. But often times, our blessings won’t be a straight shot hallway experience.  But they will be a lot like this maze; full of wrong turns, dead ends, U-turns & back tracks. Often times, we find ourselves in the dark places of ‘not knowing’, feeling our way around with only the thought of the blessing pushing us. No light in sight. No ringing bells. No aromas. No evidence that we’re anywhere close to what we’ve asked for. Time moves on, the maze experience start to get the best of us. We start to wonder if God wanted us to even have this blessing in the first place. The closed doors. The dead ends.  The start overs. The feelings of fatigue, defeat & hopelessness. We simply, grow weary & tired of wading and waiting. But every now and then we are reminded that God has Divinely orchestrated the maze experience to maximize our growth and His glory…..if we faint not, in due season. The maze was never intended to discourage us. But it’s intentionally designed to prepare us, position us & empower us. God knows that sometimes the “roundabout” way, isn’t the easiest, nor the desired way. But it’s always the best way. You see, the hallway (straight shot experience) doesn’t require faith.  But faith pleases God. Without it, it’s impossible to please God. God is so gracious, He affords us opportunities to excersize that faith by sending us through the maze. We grow in the maze. We’re strengthened in the maze. We please God in the maze. God is glorified in the maze. God is simply, a-maze-ing. You don’t get amazing without the maze. 🙂

*tj

There is absolutely no place you can find yourself in during your life that God didn’t already know about before you experienced it. This includes every hilltop experience and every valley experience. Particularly, the valley experiences are the ones we seem to forget this. God can’t be surprised by the events of your life. He’s never shocked. As a matter of fact, if you can manage to maintain a right/godly perspective, you’d actually be able to see how, when & where God was strategically preparing & positioning you for the valleys you (will) find yourself in. Unfortunately, many of us will miss out on this Divine preparation because we’re disobedient, unfaithful, slothful and lack commitment to our godly calling and purpose in life. We attended church, but we failed to BE the Church–preparation. We read our bibles but we didn’t study our bibles- -preparation. We vented to the Lord, but we didn’t pray to the Lord–preparation. We learned about God in our religion but we never came to know Him in a relationship–preparation. There’s power in preparation. Valleys will come.
God won’t do for you in miracle what you can do in muscle. He prepares us. But we have to prepare.

*Tressa Jo