A prayer on Sunday ~ June 21

Today's prayer was written during my study of Finding God's Path Through Your Trials.  This book by Elizabeth George is life-changing.  I have worked through the study three times -- twice on my own, and once with my ladies' Sunday School class.  As you can see, even the cover of my copy is looking a bit dog-eared.  If you never read this book, you need to.  I've heard it said that every believer is either going through a trial, just coming out of a trial, or getting ready to go into a trial.  Not to mention, our whole world is experiencing some major trials right now.

Here's one of the prayers I wrote during my studies of this book:

"LORD,

I do thank You for how You work in our lives through trials.  I thank You for the lessons You are teaching me through my current trials.  Thank You for helping me to understand that trials are a part of life and that I can count them as joy because You have a good purpose in them.

Lord, I know that You allow trials in our lives to test the reality of our faith, and I praise You that my faith is passing the test.  Help me, Lord, to develop staying power, as this is an area where I really need to grow.  Help me to continue steadfast in my trials and to cooperate with Your good plan, no matter how long the trials last.

I praise You, Lord, that Your strength is made perfect in my weakness.  Help me to count on Your power and draw on Your might, through every moment of each trial.

Lord, I pray that You will help me to stay in my trials, walking through them in Your strength while I wait for You to work.  I praise You for all that You are doing in my life!

In Jesus' name,
Amen."

It's interesting to me, as I look back on some of the hardest times in my life, to see how God did just what I was asking for in the second paragraph: He helped me to develop staying power.  Not that I've "arrived" in this, or in any other area, but my staying power has definitely increased over what it was.  There were times when I thought particular trials would never pass -- and indeed they have not gone away completely -- yet by God's grace (and only by God's grace) I was able to remain in them.  Now I can look back and say that part of the purpose for those trials was surely to help me gain staying power and to grow in emotional stability.

There are some trials, of course, that we may not understand the purpose of in this life.  We may never comprehend just why God allows some things to happen.   Yet as the old Gospel song reminds us, "farther along we'll know all about it."  We can cling to the fact that God does have a purpose in all that He allows, and His purposes are always good.