Posted on June 16, 2023 by Elizabeth Welte in Victory Call
“I will stay on this treadmill until You deliver me from anxiety.”
“I will read Romans 8 and not move on until You give me clarity and understanding.”
I know a woman who made these statements.
Foolishness.
She was calling God out, making demands of the Almighty. It seems she thought manipulation would somehow work with the Sovereign One. [Just the thought itself is contrary.]
Foolishness.
She subconsciously believed that deliverance and growth happened in a miraculous instant. As if the right phrase, the right thought, the right activity would, “poof”, change her forever. What she failed to grasp, at that time, was that the Sovereign God cannot be manipulated for her own purposes. That God has a plan and purpose for her life, for her suffering, and her joys.
That God grows her in Christ-likeness in a gradual, progressive process of sanctification and that He uses everything that comes into her life to accomplish it. God is not a genie in a bottle that can be summoned to do her will and she dare not call God out to do her bidding.
God used her season of anxiety and depression to grow His compassion for others deep in her heart. Her understanding and empathy for people who are suffering is far richer than it used to be. God has used His Word over and over in her life to reveal Himself to her in ways she never would have imagined and it happened over years and years of Bible reading, not in a day or a week reading Romans 8 over and over again.
God has taught this foolish woman that He is sovereign, that He is good, that He is faithful and that He will conform her to the image of Jesus Christ in His way and in His timing not hers.
I know a woman …
that woman is me.
Written by Diane Hunt: Diane Hunt serves on the board of America’s Keswick and is the Executive Director & CEO of Changed Choices, a Christian non-profit in North Carolina. She is also a biblical counselor and women’s event speaker. For more information about having Diane speak at your next event please contact her at dhunt@americaskeswick.org.
Think About This: “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” – C.S. Lewis
The Daily Bible Reading: 2 Chronicles 9, Proverbs 30-31. You can download our 2023 Daily Bible Reading Plan by clicking here.
This Week’s Verse to Memorize:“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” Hebrews 2:17-18
Consider a retreat at America’s Keswick retreat center.
