A Greater Power is at Work in Your Life

You know a greater power is at work in your life when you can take no for an answer and prefer it over not having an answer at all. When you can come through the deepest pain ever and end with having a greater peace than you have ever had before. When you can experience disappointment and come through being thankful for it. When you can look back over what seemed to be the most difficult experiences in your life and see God’s hand leading you through it to the place you are now. When you can go through experiences that you just can’t understand, but somehow they widen your horizons and give you a clearer vision.  When you can look at trials as an opportunity for growth instead of a major disappointment in your life.  When you can look at the people whose words have hurt you the most and be able to forgive them. When you are able to look past their flaws and, instead of discouragement, see the beautiful person God has created them to be, and be able to love them as Christ did even though they disappointed you. When you can be bold and confident and share what God has done for you without being ashamed of your own experiences. When you count it a privilege to suffer a little of what Jesus has suffered for you so you can empathize with others who may have had the same experience.  When you can look at your broken dreams as a sign that the Lord has something better for you than you could ever plan for yourself.  When you can embrace tribulations and see that God must see something beautiful in you, or He wouldn’t take the time to work on you as a refiner takes on his vessel. When you can look back over so-called bad life experiences which you would never have chosen for yourself, experiences that you would have avoided if you could have seen the future, and not regret the decisions you made because now you can see clearly by faith without a shadow of a doubt that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” When the promises of God are your encouragement, when the Bible is your companion book, when the Word of God is real to you, it is God speaking to you. When you don’t feel the need to have another person in this world understand you and what you are going through because you know that no one can understand you like your Heavenly Father already does. When you can only see the beauty of God, allowing just what you would have never wanted to happen, to show you His great love for you in a more powerful way than ever before. When you finally come to the end of your rope realizing through your own experience that your hope truly is not in yourself but it is in Christ alone. When you can be excited to see how God will lead you in the future even when you don’t know what you will be doing in the next few months from now. When you have experienced the joy and peace of surrender and the sheer amazement to see God using you in a way you would have never dreamed of for yourself, even through your own unworthiness and failures. When you feel a sense of security and possess a freedom that you have always desired, amid awkward situations and in places with people you used to wish you could escape from. When you can kiss your fears and worries goodbye, when you can throw your own plans down the drain, when you can let go and not turn back….it is then that you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a greater power is at work in your life, the power of God. And you are finally willing to suffer anything, to face anything ahead you, willing to forget those things which are behind and press forward to the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus because you see that there is something better in store for you. You can finally see past the temporal things and reach forward to the eternal, knowing that God doesn’t just exist, but He is at work in your life. He is your best Friend, He is your Father, your Counselor, your Guide, the One you can cling to through it all!