Grace for the Trials

Today, another quote from Let Go by Fenelon. Trials are inevitable. Walking through them, we can either grow or let them overwhelm us.

"None of us are wise enough to properly apportion grace and suffering. We cannot see the extent of our future trials, nor of the vast supplies of which God is storing up in us so that we can meet them. And because we cannot see those future trials, nor the grace that will be needed for them, we are tempted to become discouraged and despondent in our present situations. We see our trials rolling in toward us like great, overpowering, ocean waves. Our hearts fail us with fear at the prospect of drowning. We do not see that we stand within the point at which God, with a steady finger, has drawn the boundary line. Beyond that line the waves cannot pass.

God often allows us to be tested as one is tested by a stormy sea. God stirs up the sea, and makes its great billows seem to threaten destruction. But He is always at hand to say, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.'

'God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able to bear it' (I Cor. 10:13)."

I do not know what trial you may be experiencing today, or may be facing in the future. I do know that God is faithful to provide you the strength, grace, and patience you need to walk through it. I have experienced some tough trials of my own lately, and I have found these words to be true.

If anyone knew trials, it was Job. I love this verse from Job 23:10:

"But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold."

These words, too, from I Peter 1:6, 7:

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ..."

Stand firm, dear friend! The God who made the waves will not allow them to overwhelm you!