Don’t Lose Sight of What God Is Doing In Your Life
When we only seek God’s hand, we grow self-centered and materialistic and lose sight of the character-forming process God is working in our lives. We reveal that what we really want from God is not more of him but more of what he can do.
Around eight years ago, I was in a dark space. My wife and I were planting a church in East Toronto, and I didn’t understand what depression was, let alone how to handle it.
I shared these feelings with my friend Phil Brown, whose wife experienced depression. Somewhere in our exchange, he said something like, “Ezra, just remember that God is more interested in developing your character than he is in teaching you a lesson.” That line has stuck with me.
Everyone likes lessons where they can say, “Phew, I’m glad I learned that, and so now I can move on to something else.” But the Christian life isn’t like this. God stands outside of time, and he often lets us sit with challenging situations for much longer than we’d like.
We keep thinking, “OK, God, I get the point. Now, could you please move me on to something bigger?”
Instead, nothing changes. Why? Because something else is at play. God is working on our character. And the more we resist this, the longer we’ll need to sit. So, how do I embrace his character-forming process? Here is the secret.
