Day 16:: God's Curriculum

God's Curriculum includes:

1. Enough joy to encourage us.
2. Enough love to strengthen us.
3. Enough success to build our confidence.
4. Enough suffering to force us to depend on Him.
5. Enough confusion to make us seek His Face.

He Does Puts Us Through "School" to Build Our Faith!

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9)

God's method of Instruction:

1. Impart truth.
2. Affirmation; like an answered prayer.
3. Test...to see if we really believe Him.

 There are 2 kinds of Darkness:

1. to young Christians, darkness is through their sins. The solution is confession, repentance, and obedience.
2. to mature Christians, the darkness is very different. If you are in that darkness and you try to 'light your own flame' and produce your own emotion, you will "lie down in torment" (Isaiah 50:10-11)

"Many times the tests God gives us are not only for us. God uses them to get the attention of those around us too."
"Each of us faced a test to see if we would trust Him, to see if we would cry out to Him when no one else could come through for us."

• God gave me:
• Enough joy to encourage me: Joy isn't the same thing as happiness. I get absolutely giddy with joy when I think about what's waiting for me, of all people, on the other side of this life. :)
• Enough love to strengthen me: I'll tell you one thing. If Jesus loved me enough to die the death he suffered on that cross, I know that through Him I have the strength to do anything. :)
• Enough success to build my confidence: When I feel like there's nothing else I can learn, or no way I can advance...He throws a little 'success' my way and lets me know that I'm capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. 
• Enough suffering to force me to depend on him: I suffered so much when my parents passed away. I didn't know, until recently, how much of me that took and how big of a deal that was. Without Christ, there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be who I am today.
• Enough confusion to make me seek his face: Lately, I've been so confused with death. I don't know what happens when you die. I don't know how things happen. No better time than to really investigate. :)
• "Dark Night of the Soul" :: Sometimes, even recently, I have felt like there's nothing I can do to make certain things be heard by Christ. I suppose He has a plan for me and those things don't have a place in my life. Its really hard when it seems like I can't overcome a sin, especially when I don't even know its a sin. 
• As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than our ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)  This is very encouraging to me. And very incomprehensible at the same time. All I can understand is what I know. It's amazing that Christ knows so much more about the direction I'm heading.
• Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:3-5)  He leads us the right way through obstacles that we see as being 'in our way' of coming through that test, when, in reality, the journey is the test.