"If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are
comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of
the same sufferings we suffer." - 2 Corinthians 1:6
"God must love you a lot! He
doesn't allow someone to go through the kinds of adversity you have experienced
unless He has a special calling on your life." Those were the words said
to me by two different mentors at two different times within a three-year
period. Later I would learn another related truth from a respected man of God -
a man who lives in another country, a man whom God uses throughout the globe.
"The depth and width of your faith experiences are directly proportional
to your calling." What were these men of God saying?
They were describing a process of
preparation that God takes each of His leaders through when He plans to use
them in significant ways. A "faith experience" is an event or
"spiritual marker" in your life about which you can say, "That
is where I saw God personally moving in my life." It is an unmistakable
event in which God showed Himself personally to you. It was the burning bush
for Moses; the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River for the nation of
Israel; Jacob's encounter with the angel. It was the feeding of the 5,000 for
the disciples. It was the time when you saw God face to face in your life.
If God has plans of using you in the
lives of many others, you can expect that He is going to allow certain faith
experiences to come into your life in order to build a foundation that will be
solid. That foundation is what you will be able to look back on to keep you
faithful to Him in the times of testing. Each of us must have personal faith
experiences in which we experience God personally so that we can move in faith
to whatever He may call us. Do you need a personal faith experience right now
in your life? Pray that God will reveal Himself to you. He delights in doing
that.
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