Sometimes God gives us lemons

I have been thinking lately about how God tests us.  Maybe you can relate to this if you’ve grown up in the church like mme.  I know that God wants the best  for me.  He died for me, and He cares for me a lot.  So I sort of assume that when God loves me, He’ll take care of me by keeping me healthy, happy, and everything will go well.  That the closer I get to Him, and more I trust and please Him, the easier things will get for me.  Wrong. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not forgetting about the verse if taking up my cross daily.  Being a Christian and being sacrificial are not easy.  And they’re uncomfortable.  And I realize that we’re being attacked by an enemy.  But I sort of thought my heart was off limits.  That God would test in me in a bunch of ways, but my heart was a non-negotiable.  Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts, for it is the wellspring of life.  However, then I read Proverbs 17:3 that says “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart.”  So God tests our heart.

February has been one of the hardest months of my life.  As I went through it, and now as I look back, it seems like I was being tested in lots of ways.  There was just a lot of hard news, issues, questions, and tasks I had to go through.  Some of them were from the enemy, and some of them were from the Lord.  But as I look back, I have to question myself, “If these tests were from the Lord, they would not be more than I could handle (with His help too).” 

Good news: I made it through alive.  God is on my side.  I’m not leaving on His team.