The Inside Track

What is God doing in your life this week?

If you are like me, you think…hmm, maybe in this situation He blessed me, through this Scripture He gave me his comfort, peace, strength in that hard situation, or in this turn of events He gave me victory or protection or provision.  Perhaps I was moved or encouraged by a great sermon.

Can I re-direct your thoughts?

Each of these answers points to an action of God in our external circumstance.

This week I read a thought-provoking statement that gives pause to redirect:

“We need to learn to distinguish what happens to us 

 from what happens in us."   –Jeff Straub, Heart, Soul, Might, page 138.

In promises like Philippians 1:6, God promises to do something inside us.

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

  And this work…well, it really is the work that God is about in our lives at all times.  And he won’t quit until it is accomplished at the final appearing of Christ Himself! 

His business is about changing me from the inside out so that I represent His Son and the glory of the gospel.

This means I should be about recognizing God’s work to change/grow/transform me inside at least as much (or more) than focusing on the outside circumstance.

This shift of thinking becomes, perhaps, the most significant in time of trial, suffering, and difficulty.

It is in these discouraging circumstances that I can get stuck in the rut of all that is happening TO ME. (It is hard, it hurts, it makes me depressed, it confuses me, it attacks my faith…on and on it goes.)

INSTEAD…

Even in this hard reality, what is God doing inside you….to your heart…to your mind?

• When all the world can be falling apart around you, may not the Spirit of God can be strengthening  your inner resolve to give full dependence on Him?
• When life is unfulfilling or downright disappointing, could God  be re-focusing your inward hope to eternity…and loosening your affection for things of this world?
• When people disappoint or even betray, is one purpose of God to  gently redirect your heart and expectations to trust only in Him?
• When best-laid plans go awry, and all preparations fail to produce the desired outcome,  is not one inwardly laid lesson to give up self-reliance and stop depending on self for He alone is the controller of all?

This inner work (and a million other possibilities) is going on full force…and it is a work of GRACE and GOODNESS.

So…

Don’t despair at what may be happening to you.

Rejoice in what God is always accomplishing in you.