"...he made me into a polished arrow"
Isaiah 49:2 contains this portion of Scripture. The events of today in combination with this verse got me to thinking about the adversities of life and God’s purposes in them.
The goal for many of us is to get through life as unscathed and trouble free as possible, when that is not God’s intention or plan at all for His children. Think of all of God we would miss without adversity, without hardship, and without persecution.
Our faith and trust in God grows deep in times of trial. The roots of our belief and understanding grow deep and strong into our hearts and create anchors that are immoveable. Some of the best times of growth in my spiritual life have been when life has been at its worst. When times were tough and I was completely uncertain of everything in this life and how it would unfold is when the “Who” of God became real.
Do you know what I mean by the “Who of God?” Until we have cause to grab hold of all we have learned and put in our minds about God and His character it is all ethereal and unformed. There is little substance that we can wrap our arms around. But when those harsh waves of adversity crash into life we begin to experience God. We begin to “see” who He is and receive in ways that defy words the things God promises to us as we believe.
Without these things in life we would remain unpolished, our edges both outer and inner would remain jagged. Adversity brings change on some level. It brings us changes of the heart (the inner man) because we receive things that we don’t want, or we are denied things that we do want and we have to make a decision to respond righteously. This causes change as what we have learned in the abstract now must become real to us in application. When we make that transfer, change takes place.
God’s polishing tool brings us pain at times, literal, physical pain. Illness, disease, and suffering are all tools of the Almighty in shaping us into His image. He will stop at nothing to create in us what He has foreordained. There is nothing that says I have to like this or enjoy it, but on every level I must persevere through it.
These times are a part of living in God's College of Sanctification. When the adversity gets to the level that I am concerned that I might not make it through, then I know that the initial exploratory heart surgery is over and God owns enough of me to use His scalpel to cut to the very core of my being.
The result of the polishing process yields a beautiful, crystal clear, and brilliant stone in the end. That stone will be your life and you will one day exchange it for another stone that you will lay before your Lord as you worship before Him.