A large steel mill (Journal Entry)

Wow, Lord, you provided this reading from Streams in the Desert just for me today, as I start the week, coming out of a weekend of feeling frustrated, like a failure, worthless, and as if this work is completely impossible…

And on top of this reading- the sun just came out!!! :) I feel right now, like whatever happens today, this is going to be a good day- not good in the sense of the things that happen or don’t happen, but in the sense of attitude and being, and because you, above all, are indeed good.

Here is your promise and assurance to me from Streams in the Desert this morning:

I once visited the testing room of a large steel mill. I was surrounded by instruments and equipment that tested pieces of steel to their limits and measured their breaking point. Some pieces had been twisted until they broke, and then were labeled with the level of pressure they could withstand. Some had been stretched to their breaking point, with their level of strength also noted. Others had been compressed to their crushing point and measured. Because of the testing, the manager of the mill knew exactly how much stress and strain each piece of steel could endure if it was used to build a ship, building or bridge.

It is often much the same with God’s children. He does not want us to be like fragile vases of glass or porcelain. He wants us to be like these toughened pieces of steel, able to endure twisting and crushing pressure to the utmost without collapse.

God does now want us to be like greenhouse plants, which are sheltered from rough weather, but like storm-beatedn oaks; not like sand dunes that are driven back and forth by every gust of wind, but like granite mountains that withstand the fiercest storms. Yet to accomplish this, He must take us into His testing room of suffering. And many of us need no other argument than our own experiences to prove that suffering is indeed God’s testing room of faith.

It is quite easy for us to talk and to theorize about faith, but God often puts us into His crucible of affliction to test the purity of our gold and to separate the dross from the metal. How happy we are if the hurricanes that blow across life’s raging sea have the effect of making Jesus more precious to us! It is better to weather the storm with Christ than to sail smooth waters without Him.
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And it is certainly better to weather the storm with Jesus than without him!!! I can’t do this on my own, that’s for sure- so I should just stop trying!!!