Sunday Morning Spiritual Thoughts: Striving through bumpy road.....

When I was growing up, never really had a cold until I moved away from my parents house. I was very athletic, swam for 30 plus years and road cycling 25 to 100 miles every weekend. When I was healthy physically, I have learned nothing about about real life until recently. My deafness which I was born with, is not an illness but rather a disability. Looking back. I was very healthy and was able to do anything that a "normal able" people could do but hear. I hardly missed any work, I was able to my daily activities. I was able to do many things that more "disabled" person may not be able to do so. Until later in life that is. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2002. Today, I am healthy but do get sick at times however, there are days that MS can affect my daily activities. Many people asked me how do I cope, I responded that I have learned to cope with God's grace.

I have seen people who overcame their situations into positive regardless the situation. I also have experiences by overcoming my own situations as well. God's knowledge of my own discouragements are more than just knowledge; His knowledge is more personal, warm, and compassionate. He knows every pains I have been facing. Inside me, I know I am not alone because He is with me. Making a strong conviction to decided on what is affecting me, my attitude is to move on by living in faith. Accepting God's purposes and plans of God however He sees fit in my life. My faith is to believe Him and allow Him to adjust my life according to His will. I am to be aware of obstacles and hindrances I would be facing throughout my life that will throw me off balance. What should motivate me is like an athlete who trains for the Olympics to win a gold medal with such self-discipline and willing to face the challenges. In 2 Corinthians 9:8, Paul reminded me that God is able to provide unlimited grace abound to me, so that in all things at all times, having all that I need, I will abound in every everything I do. For when I am weak inside me, God's grace will make me strong. Like a journey of a child with his father, a child is unable to imagine events but a child will know and trust his father.That's how I am with God. Learning from great faiths in the Bible, I saw that their circumstances did not control them that they have reacted to their circumstances which clearly show what kind of people they were and most importantly, how faithful they were. They actually understood God's grace. God is adjusting my own history to His purposes. He knows what He's doing. I have to learn to trust His will, His power to do His will, and His timing to do it when the time is right--and not until then. That's the essence of real faith.

I have been studying about a man name "Job" in the Old Testament for a long time and learned about his own sufferings and how he coped them. Job reads like history. It talks about a man named Job. He lived in the land of Uz. It relates details about his family, his life, and his suffering. It communicates to us his friends' interest in his suffering, and the spiritual struggling with which Job dealt. What's interesting is that other biblical writers refer to Job as a real person. Ezekiel refers to Job along with Noah and Daniel (Ezekiel 14:14,20). And James draws upon the example of Job to comfort the suffering, proving the point that God is merciful. He commends the endurance of Job (Jas. 5:11). From the Book of Job, we see that God is in complete control. Satan had neither the power nor the authority to do anything without the permission of God. It was consistent with God's nature and will for him to have allowed those things to happen to Job. God's main purpose in redemption was not to make my life happy, healthy and free of trouble but rather His main purpose was to rescue me from my sin that I was born with by transforming me from within to the image of Jesus by the power of His Grace. God has given me His grace to sanctify me through the sources of "thorns" which are weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions and difficulties in my life. Through God's GRACE, my life will be go through "Perseverance that must finish the work so that I may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:4). James says count it all joy when I fall into various trials cause trials will provide God's perfecting work. Peter says after I have suffered a while the Lord will make me perfect. God uses suffering to reveal my spiritual condition. Reading the beginning of Psalm 23 that stars with "The LORD is my shepherd", in John 10 explains that Jesus is my Shepherd that He releases me from fear (John 10:1-8, 11-13), He satisfies my spiritual hunger (John 10:9-10), and He brings me together with others to the flock (John 10:11-18)

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep.

1 Peter 2:25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

The main thing to understand and remember is that Jesus is MY SHEPHERD that He will supply all my needs (Phil. 4:19) and that He knows everything about my life (Ps. 139:3), cares about me (1 Pet. 5:7), has the power for every difficulty (Ps. 62:11), is perfecting me to be like Christ (Phil. 1:6), and that nothing escapes Him (Ps. 147:5), that will lead me to be stable, not anxious living.

With that, I am not thankful that I am deaf however I am thankful because in my circumstance of my deafness, I have communicated with other deaf people to know Christ as Jesus said in John 9:3 "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."

That's what I am to be thankful for. I am not thankful for what I am experiecing but I am thankful in what I am living in through God's grace.

God reminded me of His promises through the Bible:
Philippians 4:11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

1 Timothy 4:8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Spiritual thanksgiving is that I can rejoice because I do count in God's promises for me which are greater than my own trials. In the Old Testament, God taught me examples of GREAT faiths listed in Hebrews, Chapter 11 which is a chapter everyone may know called "Hall of Faiths".

We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God. (D.L. Moody)

"Moses spent 40 years thinking he was somebody; 40 years learning he was nobody; and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody." DL Moody