Our Character

http://youtu.be/TTA2buWlNyM

"The tragedies of life, small and large, carve contours in our character that draw us to a different way of living, one that God intends to both use and transform.

God is writing a story in our lives, Dr. Allender says. Our lives aren't just random, unconnected collections of scenes without meaning. They have purpose, and as we become more and more in tuned to who God is, we can actually participate with Him in the way our story turns out. WE can have peace in the plot's strange twists and turns. We can be free from fear of the bad guys. We can shine with God's love and draw other people to see God's good story in their own lives.

Many of us have chapters that we would prefer had never been written. There are sections of my story that I used to wish I could delete like a computer file. One click of the mouse and those chapters would be gone. I just wanted to keep the cheerful parts.

But now I'm beginning to learn that the hard chapters show God's power in a way that the happy ones do not. Brokenness moves my story forward in a way that peaceful times do not. It's in the difficulties that I became desperate to really know God, to cry out to Him.

As Dan Allender says, we only learn to accept and love our story "to the degree that we see the glory that seeps through our most significant shattering. To see the glory, we must enter into and read our tragedies with confidence that they will end better than we could ever imagine.

When everything is going well, we often can't hear God, because the music all around us is turned up too loud. But when the party stops---in those moments of crashing pain, sorrow, and sudden silence---we begin to hear His voice. I've learned that if I listen and lean on His strength, He can help me climb out of the wreckage. As I do, I have new perspectives about what is precious and what is truly important."

~Denise Jackson....Wife of Alan Jackson....taken from: It's All About Him