What are your thoughts on Chastisement? I'm going through a season right now that I believe to be Chastisement, and would like to know your thoughts on the subject. Also, if anyone has any stories or words of encouragement or advise I really need it right now. Has any any experience they can share with me? It seems like it's never going to end, and I'd feel allot better if I knew it was going to end at some point.
From a 'personal perspective' I can certainly testify to 'chastisement.' I often wondered in the past about WHY such things transpire. It's not that one might 'suffer' such things because of the (supposed) testimony or work that we (think) we are 'doing for the Lord' always, but just in the matters of the courses of LIFE.
When I came to know God in Christ it was at a very low point in my life. Where nothing and I mean NOTHING was 'going right.' God often reaches out to many of us when we are in the straights of desperation. That is where God met me, at my moment of need within and touched me therein.
External circumstances did not change. Without elaborations my personal travails were MULTI-fold and seemingly insurmountable. It took 16 very very long years of walking each day without any HOPE of resolution to come to a 'satisfactory completion' of these matters. I had other longer term believers tell me at the time that God could and work out such difficulties to satisfaction. It was hard for me at that time to really be able to see or perceive how that could be so. When one day I looked back it was amazing to see how in each and every turn, both good and bad, that the solutions were well in the works and yes, everything DID turn out OK... and far far better than I could have ever expected or thought of, the details of which will only remain special to me. That IS how God works with His children. The old pressure on the coal to make diamonds is a good analogy. The mountains can be climbed and they are so often by single steps in darkness not being able to see the WHOLE picture as it is being painted, and yes, often involving personal pain and turmoil and great anxieties.
On the other side of the mountain of chastisement past what one will often find AFTER THAT are even GREATER challenges that make the achievements of the past mountain climb look trivial. Yep. When one mountain is DONE you WILL find another even greater mountain of travail to take it's place.
In all of these things I learned to throw myself down in utter despair, knowing that I of my self CANNOT DO IT. It's NOT POSSIBLE. There are things in life that ONLY GOD can remedy. And in that walk the only thing LEFT to do is to walk each day in HOPE and in TRUST as these truly are part of the PACKAGE of FAITH, which 'works' through LOVE. The experiences of ALL of us will remain individualized and that too is part of the beauty of 'subjective' intimacy that is drawn out in the walk of faith.
The absolute greatest treasure that was given to me along this way is the both the scriptural understanding to love my neighbors as myself and the practical applications of that walk, even though they many may APPEAR to be enemies, and yes, God DOES raise our enemies, starting WITHIN. It is unto HIM that these must be carried and SHOWN and dealt with...we cannot HIDE what is within us. It WILL be revealed what is in the heart, sooner or later.
2 Chronicles 34:27
Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD.
Isaiah 26:20
Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee:
hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
Jeremiah 45:5
And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for,
behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.
HOPE this helps from one believer to another. God is a most powerful ally. I could get into a theological dissection of WHY these things transpire because now I KNOW why, but troubles DO transpire. We are assured of THAT.
Here is how Paul 'lived' in his heart:
Romans 9:
1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
2 That
I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
If our walk is true, we will have no different.
enjoy!
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