Can Your Heart Endure?

Can Thine Heart Endure?

"We know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Rom. 8:26).

Much that perplexes us in our Christian experience is but the answer to our prayers. We pray for patience, and our Father sends those who tax us to the utmost; for "tribulation worketh patience."

We pray for submission, and God sends sufferings; for "we learn obedience by the things we suffer."

We pray for unselfishness, and God gives us opportunities to sacrifice ourselves by thinking on the things of others, and by laying down our lives for the brethren.

We pray for strength and humility, and some messenger of Satan torments us until we lie in the dust crying for its removal.

We pray, "Lord, increase our faith," and money takes wings; or the children are alarmingly ill; or a servant comes who is careless, extravagant, untidy or slow, or some hitherto unknown trial calls for an increase of faith along a line where we have not needed to exercise much faith before.

We pray for the Lamb-life, and are given a portion of lowly service, or we are injured and must seek no redress; for "he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and… opened not his mouth."

We pray for gentleness, and there comes a perfect storm of temptation to harshness and irritability. We pray for quietness, and every nerve is strung to the utmost tension, so that looking to Him we may learn that when He giveth quietness, no one can make trouble.

We pray for love, and God sends peculiar suffering and puts us with apparently unlovely people, and lets them say things which rasp the nerves and lacerate the heart; for love suffereth long and is kind, love is not impolite, love is not provoked. LOVE BEARETH ALL THINGS, believeth, hopeth and endureth, love never faileth. We pray for likeness to Jesus, and the answer is, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong?" "Are ye able?"

The way to peace and victory is to accept every circumstance, every trial, straight from the hand of a loving Father; and to live up in the heavenly places, above the clouds, in the very presence of the Throne, and to look down from the Glory upon our environment as lovingly and divinely appointed.  --Selected

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Can your Heart endure? That is a gut wrenching question. The very question points to pain and suffering. When you are asked the question: Can your heart endure? The first thing that comes to mind is, endure what? Endure the abandonment of those you believed to be dependable, financial strain that causes you to buckle under the weight of its inexorable force, the heartache of losing a loved one, are all things that the believer will experience. You will be hated for no apparent reason. David said, "In return for my love, they have become my accusers.

The question arises once again, Can your heart endure? What is this question that plagues me in the middle of the night? The question is asking when the fierce winds of adversity roll into your life, when the vicissitudes are incessant and intense, will you be able to resist the natural urge to throw in the towel? Will you fold when your hopes seem unattainable?

What is this question: Can your heart endure? What God is asking is, Can I trust you with trouble? You see, very few believers want to here this, but the christian life does not become effective and useful until it has been tried by trouble. The believer does not advance until he has withstood the flames of testing. I often say that the phosphorescent light of the Christian shines brightest  amidst of the fierce winds of adversity. A Christian is not revealed in comfort and prosperity. The Christian is revealed in his response to adversity. A Christian is revealed when, after losing everything, he falls to his knees and says, "Naked I came into this world and naked shall I return. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord." The Christian is revealed when He says, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. The Christian is revealed when he says, that I will glory in my distresses... When it seems that God has forgotten about you and that His awesome hands of protection have been far removed from your life, yet, you say without waver, "I still trust you", does your identity shine forth.

Dr. Rick Wallace

So, I ask you, Can your heart endure? Are you built for the battle? Are you sold out for the cause? If you are not, you will not see this task all the way through until the end. Only the committed soldier can manage the pain. Only the heart that is loyal to the cause can stay the course. God wants to know can He trust you with trouble.

Many of you have been fed the lie that the life of the Christian is a life of ease. I am sorry to inform you, that is as far from the truth as it can get. The Christian life is not characterized by a life of ease, but one of reward for enduring the difficulty. Difficulty is the catalyst to greatness in the life of the believer. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace