Vision Attacked

 

Every dream, every vision is taken into a valley. The vision is put through rigorous vetting to prove the tenacity and strength and purpose of the vision.   Too often as Christians we opt for comfort and we succumb to the valley experiences and give up.   Only those who see their vision from God and keep their eyes on Him and their feet on His path will make it through the valley of temptation and experience the utter joy of seeing that God was in it.

 

No one escapes the valley and catapults to the top of the mountain. The view on top of the mountain is always worth the climb.

 

John 16 says, ‘some will weep and some will mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grieving will turn to joy.’   Psalm 30:5 says, ‘weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.’

 

The painfully joyous experience of birthing a child is front and center.   The woman is in extreme pain and anguish. But that pain is turned to joy at the birth of the child. Not only is the pain turned to joy but the agonizing mother ‘forgets’ the pain the moment she sees the newborn baby and holds that precious gift from God in her loving arms.

 

Then Jesus turns from figurative speech and lays down a line of reality.

 

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.

 

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

 

Sometimes the best thing to do is REMEMBER the promises of God and CLAIM them.

Psalm 105 is an accounting of the story of bondage.   It is the story of plagues. It is the story of ‘wilderness’ experiences. READ IT TODAY. …But in the end, the reward of the promised land.

 

I think we need to remember these truths as we engage in our journey through this world and seemingly numerous wilderness or valley experiences.

 

1. God is always moving.  Your position does not reflect His progression.   His master plan is greater than our daily task oriented agendas.

 

2. What you believe is incarceration God uses as incubation.  Are you feeling enslaved by your circumstances.   Do you believe you are being held captive?   My friend, hold on…joy comes in the morning. God is incubating you and strengthening you.   He has amazing plans for you.

 

3. Remember Israel.  God had a big plan for them but He could not accomplish it from where they currently were.  He chose to take them through the wilderness.  Life is not always delivered in rose bouquets and fruitful delights. Sometimes he puts us in the refinery and turns up the heat to purify the gold and make it stronger.   Keep the end in sight. YOU WIN…if you are IN CHRIST!

 

4. You may not feel like you are where you want to be but God promised that Israel would be a great nation and that they would experience the Promised Land. God has equally called you and longs to pour out His blessing to others where you are seemingly bypassed. Moses never got to see the promised land, but God used his leadership to get the people where He wanted them to go, even though many times they cried out seriously loud to go back to Egypt and bondage.   Freedom requires sacrifice.   Inheritance requires death. Death to self, means alive in Christ.

 

My prayer is that today we all start praising God for where we are and for the joy of knowing that God will take us exactly where He wants us to go and that He will make us into what He wants us to be.

 

1 John 4:4 My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world’s language and the world eats it up. But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception.