Forty Days Full - An Invitation To Real Life

come into agreement with the accuser. They are convinced they’re worthless, unloved and a failure before God. A true child of God is none of those things. You have been crafted and formed as a partner with Christ to change the world. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ” Romans 8:28 NIV Since we are God's workmanship, He's taking everything in our life and using it for good. He'll take good things, bad things and things you'd like to forget. I mentioned earlier in this book how a few years ago our church had a leadership meltdown that resulted in a church split. It was the most painful season in my career as a pastor. I very seriously considered throwing in the towel, but God wouldn't let me. There is no quick recovery to things like this. It was a long arduous process of leading myself and others out of despair. As I was making my way, I said to God, "whatever I need to learn from this, please help me to learn it." God did not create this bad situation. I did that! But he will use every situation for our good if we will learn from it. It is many years later now, and I can say I am truly grateful for what I learned from that failure. It has formed so many things in me that were missing. It is the miracle of God that he can take our brokenness and make it something beautiful. When we attempt to deny the existence of painful events, we become inhuman. All we are doing is lying to ourself. We wall up our heart in an attempt to stop pain, but it doesn't work. Allowing pain to go deep into your heart will not kill you. It's in the deep places of your heart you will find Jesus waiting for you. We must allow ourselves to grieve. There's a misnomer that we have a limited number of tears to shed. Sorry...painful