Trust God

The most important thing you can do in life is trust God.  I love in a sermon I heard once that trials can make us bitter or better.  The choice is ours.  Will we let hard times make us bitter? Or will we choose to become a better person as a result of hard times?  If you think about the greatest and kindest people you have ever known, they are usually people who have been through a lot of trials.  Why is that?  Because hard times really do form our character the best.  We don't learn much in the easy times.  It's in the hard times when our faith is stretched and grown. It's in the hard times when we can learn to become better people, if we effectively learn the lessons that God is trying to teach us.

After my ex ex died 8 years ago a pastor said in my church "Sometimes God cuts down a tree so that it will grow back better."  Often times in our life we might not be great people, so God has to cut us down so that we can grow back better.  He does this through trials.  The Bible says, "the Lord disciplines the one he loves."  So know that if God is disciplining you in some way, it's because he loves you.  Your hard times do NOT mean that God doesn't love you.  He might be trying to discipline you, because he knows you can do better and be better. Be all that you can be right?  That is the motto in the army.  Often times we do not become all that we can be until we go through trials.

So often people let trials stop them in life.  They just want to dig a hole and bury themselves in it.  But that is not what God wants to see us do.  He wants trials to make us stronger, like a long day at the gym or swimming.  He wants the pain to make us stronger, and that's why he lets us go through so much pain.  "No pain, no gain" right?  Yes.  That is how it works.

The best passage on this is what Jesus says in John 15, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." If you are a branch attached to Jesus, the vine, you Will be pruned, many times, but it is for your good, so that you will bear fruit and not be thrown into the fire, which is hell. Allow God to prune you when He needs to. Don't resist it. In every trail ask God, "What are you trying to teach me in this? I trust you and know that you can make me stronger in this trial. Help me to trust you." Amen. May God bless you all!