This describes where I’m at now, losing heart/faith.  But I know God is able to turn things around. Thanks to my dear friend Dan Gore for writing this.

Pastor Dan Gore 9/13/10 www.destinyshouse.com Letter #53

2 CORINTHIANS 12:10: FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG

THINK IT NOT STRANGE, concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. (I Peter 4:12)…but let none of you suffer…as an evil doer.”

To be honest with you, I do think it is strange when fiery trials come. “How could this be happening to me, of all people.” Ha! “Why now? Why here? How much worse does this thing get before God finally intervenes?” There are those seasons when God delays His intervention, even though He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. The delay of God then becomes an actual trial, because time piles up and the situation intensifies and our position becomes more and more vulnerable & desperate.

It is not long before we are wrestling with these feelings that perhaps something has shifted with God and the favor and miracles we once enjoyed in Christ are now gone. But how often do we look at the hero’s of the bible and forget that they were also squeezed to the point of desperation. Several great men of God point blank asked God to take their lives – since the grief or pressure was so intense. I wonder how many, in these times of such dryness, were pushed almost to the point of atheism.

In Philippians 4:12 Paul says: “I have learned the SECRET to being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” What was this secret for Paul, who endured shipwrecks, beatings, imprisonment, and so many sufferings? :13 He says that he learned to remain in Christ. The other part of his secret I think is in the “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Think it not strange. Think it not strange. Why? It is strange to us because we naturally assume in our immature hearts that trouble always equals lack of blessing; lack of God’s love. We can’t help but see trials the opposite of what they really are: the avenue to greater anointing and position in God’s kingdom realm. All those great anointings and supernatural giftings you saw in these giants of faith in the bible…they did not get there by accident or some spiritual lotto drawing. Name me one great who did not go through some major crisis or loss before-hand. But the key is that they prevailed. They made it through and did not quit or exit the race prematurely. Before Peter’s shadow healed multitudes, he had to work through his own failure of rejecting Jesus when Jesus was at his lowest point. Can you imagine that on your resume’ for the world to read about? Not good. But weren’t they ordinary people just like us who managed to work through major disappointments, failures, injustices, and sufferings and overcame. We fail often and embarrass ourselves much, but we stay inside Christ.

I once heard that there are places in the wildernesses of Africa where large diamond rocks have been found just lying out on top of the sand. Places so remote and rarely visited that they are just sitting there for the taking. I think there is a small beach area in NE Florida that is like that as well, where many rubies were found just right out in the open. The same is true for the remote and dry places of our lives, if we are careful to be looking. Diamonds to be found in the low valley’s of our lives that we can not possibly pick up in the high places of victory and great material blessing. Sorry – its a fact.

Have you identified what some of those rubies are yet? Perhaps God will reveal some of them to you if you ask Him to. Jesus took your greatest past hurts & lowest dissapointments and molded them to gold.

When I am weak and have run out of options in the natural, that is when I am most vulnerable to Christ’s strength and the supernatural. I enter this strange new realm of the cross and sufferings. I see that my ego, my flesh, my reliance on carnal things; my nature apart from God must also be crucified on the cross as Jesus did for example. The delay of God; the valley experience is the time to do this. And it is here that many great and precious things are to be collected, if we are looking. Yes God!