Life right now is a daily test of faith, perseverance, routine, keeping hope alive. It's been almost 6 months of unemployment and the daily grind of job hunting...applications...marketing business ideas...interviews...waiting! It's a time of small steps, some forwards and at times a step or two backwards. It is difficult to find the "fun" in life and it is all too easy to succumb to depression and dark thoughts! The strength and comfort of my wife, friends, my God and His Word which breathes new life into a weary spirit has been priceless. Keeping one's focus and remaining positive and optimistic in thought, words and actions is a challenge and test which I confess I have failed all too often. After each visit to the dust bowel of despair, the hands of faith and hope reach out and I stand strong again, ready to enter the battle again and press on towards the goal and the hope which we have within us. The elusive "open door" IS there, waiting for me to enter...of that I am certain. The closed doors thus far serve only to bring me ever closer to God's moment of opportunity, in His timing. I pray that I do not miss it and that I am able to discern and recognise His open door when it beckons before me!
The following devotion by Oswald Chambers from his timeless classic, "My Utmost for His Highest" is so pertinent and I share this with you in the hope that it will also speak powerfully to someone going through similar challenges:
"...in much patience, in tribulation, in needs, in distresses" (2 Corinthians 6:4)
When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.
Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ in John 13:1-7
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