“Do you know that it is very important for you to ride out any storm that comes into your life until Jesus speaks to it and it goes away? Storms and trials in your life make you strong. Actually they make you weak, eliminate your own resources, and cause you to need My power. You seek Me when you can’t find any answers from your gods that you have learned to trust.
You need to know something. The rebellion in your heart is actually a desire to be independent of Me. Even though you say that you desire to serve Me and trust in Me, your inner man really desires to do its own thing. Until that part of you submits to the completed work of the cross, I cannot have the complete intimate fellowship with you that I wish. I can’t trust you with the intimate things of My heart. The old you has passed away and all things are made new, that is true. However, until all of your rebellion is worked out of you, you will not be complete. I make you complete by the trials that eliminate the rebellion in you.
So! Embrace the trials for the gift that they really are. Run to them instead of trying to find ways for them to subside. Spend your time helping Me eliminate you. Repent of your rebellion instead of pleading to be removed from the very situation that is making you more like My Son. You asked to become like Him and I promised to do everything in My power to accomplish that in you. When Jesus speaks to the trial and the needed work is completed, it will subside until the next one comes your way.
My way of removing your rebellion is permanent. Your flesh does not like it, but the eternal you craves only to have My work completed. Be encouraged! I have not forgotten you! In fact, I am very near you at this very moment, refining you and doing My work in you. Jesus will rebuke the storm soon.”
2 Cor. 7:9a-10 AMP
9aYet I am glad now, not because you were pained, but because you were pained into repentance [that turned you to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel…
10For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death].
Years ago, Merry and I endured what was, at the time, the hardest trial that had ever come our way. At times the only thing that we could do was hold each other and cry. We had lost everything, we felt alone, and had absolutely no answers. We were really afraid. In our agony, we wanted to respond to our trial. Something needed to be done, anything to make things better. We wanted to call to account those people who had part in our distress, exposing them and the situation for the fallacy that it really was. We wanted to swing back, fight, and let the truth be known.
A wonderful, long-time, trusted friend gave us possibly the wisest counsel we had ever heard. He said, “Confidence in God is how little you respond when falsely accused.” Boy, our flesh didn’t want to submit to that counsel, but we knew that it was straight from the heart of God. We shut up and gave the whole situation to Jesus.
When the trial was over, we could look back and almost pinpoint the moments when Jesus spoke into the storm and quieted the waves. He became our only defender. He was our only source for comfort. He took care of everything and sent wonderful friends to be with us.
We know that our experience is very common among believers. We both now know deep in our inner parts that the Lord can be trusted, and also know that something new was formed in us because of our relying on Him to be our only source of comfort.
I want to remember that confidence every time I am called upon to trust my God. I want to be able to embrace any situation until Jesus speaks into the storm because I know that something my Lord wants in me is being formed.
Needing to remember the power of Jesus,
Jim Corbett
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