Hard Times & Correction

You'll get more from the rebuke of a sage than from the song and dance of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:5 (Message)

Correction is never easy. There is just something about my pride that just wants to either fight or flee in the face of a rebuke or in times of correction. Yet, correction is the very thing that I need! You know, most every day I ask the Lord, ‘please change my heart, please change me’… then from out of left-field someone corrects me. Or, some irritate pops up or seemingly everything that once ran smoothly now doesn’t work at all…in the heat of the moment… how very soon I forget my prayer… do you?

I believe the Lord hears our prayers. When our heart is right, when our sin is forgiven, and when we are seeking him then he hears and he desires to answer. I think most of the time… I truly don’t like the answer. For if I desire a change of heart… will it not take correction? If I’m walking the wrong way and I believe it is the right way won’t it take a rebuke or a trial to change my course?

The Apostle Peter put it this way, “that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ… 1 Peter 1:7

The best lessons in life are not free, they have a cost. Struggle, pain, and heartache are needed to change our nature. We simply will not change on our own… so God lovingly steps into our lives… brings some fire into our lives…all to change us. This is why bad things… happen to good people.
So, if you are going through some tough times… if things just aren’t going your way then consider that God loves you (Proverbs 3:12) enough to change you… to correct your course… and he is utilizing the instruments around you.

Instruments such as your family, your friends, your co-workers, that person who cut you off in traffic, the weather, or a newly broken washer machine… believe me, the possibilities are endless…

And during those trying times the real us comes to the surface… there’s something about going through the ‘fire’ that melts our mask and exposes the ugly sinner that we all truly are. Yes it is embarrassing, it hurts, and we feel venerable… and hopefully we are humbled enough to seek the God of heaven and begin to behold his righteous glory and recognize your ugly fallen nature! When that occurs…real change can begin…