CLASSROOM AND CAULDRON

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

“God speaks to you and me through every situation, but hearing Him is dependent upon our anticipating and paying attention to His instruction. Regardless of the circumstances we experience, we know God is teaching us something, and we will intentionally and eagerly learn and apply whatever it is.” - Stanley

Yesterday I was with a good friend.  He is in the classroom.  

He would say that he is in the "cauldron".

What cauldron?

1 Peter 1:6

Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.

That cauldron.

Relationships, change and interactions are “testing” him.

He is being pressed to PAY attention.  He is most DEFINITELY in GOD’s classroom at the moment. (As we all are, but I think he is in “intense studies” right now).

God is doing some TEACHING!

He is being refined.

And I will be honest as he was honest. He hates it.

But he needs it. We all need it.

He has paused from his addiction long enough for GOD to grab hold of him.  He has put down the needle long enough and his mind has cleared enough that he can finally hear what GOD has been trying to say.

And what is GOD saying?

That HE loves Him and that is why he is in the cauldron and in the classroom.

Hebrews 12 (MSG)

…It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.

God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

That verse likely speaks to many of us today.

  

Maybe you are like my friend and in the cauldron or in the classroom. 

Perhaps GOD is doing a little educating or disciplining.

Don’t SHRUG it off!  Don’t be CRUSHED by it.

Instead embrace it as an ACT of amazing LOVE by a FATHER who deeply cherishes you. He is a FATHER so in love with you that He is taking RESPONSIBILITY for you with correction and opportunity to learn.

HE is!

After I shared this with my friend he committed to looking at the trials and challenging intersections differently.

Will you?  Will I?

For:

“God will never disappoint us… If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline. …To the unbeliever the fact of suffering only convinces him that God is not to be trusted, does not love us. To the believer, the opposite is true.” ― Elisabeth Elliot

I love you all!

Freedom Church