God has a sense of humor and inorder to follow Him one must cast off your wisdom, thinking, understanding, and perpective and take on that of inverses... This doesnt make sense but all we already practice it. For example, you have to cut your hair frequently for it to grow, to lose weight you have to eat more. The difficulty I find is I'm not relying on me and my strength, but on God's ability and His promises. Yes it is internal, but not my "self/flesh" but His "Spirit" in me.
My journey right now has me passing through "waiting". Waiting this time around is much better...I know what results when I try to hurry God's promise along by stategizing and scheming according to what this world confuses me to think "works", I also know the pure joy from watching God really move through a person. This time around God has really been speaking to me and minsitering to me that I trust Him. This brings me to "inverse relationships" and how God operates. He gives a BIG Dream or Word and then everything just goes downhill or so it would seem, bringing doubt, pain, confusion, impatience, and a yearning to return to the familiar because there's no end in sight. But all along, God works His way and as long as we cooperate we wont have to wait for His will to pass like the Isrealites spending 38 years looking at the promise land.
While completing the 5th chapter of my study guide "God matures Faith through waiting" (By Faith: Living in the certainty of God's reality), it hit me that the greater the difficulty experienced and the challenges while waiting...the greater the joy when God's power and ability is made manifest in our lives. I remember having cried out and prayed asking God to move me to a higher place of praise...instead I landed into more difficulty...Be careful what you ask for in Jesus' name... But I'm grateful nonetheles, because He has taught me...How can I praise Him more if He hasnt led me through some tough situations?!? How can I experience real and true glory when I havent been disciplined through life experiences (Hebrews 12:1-13)?!? Jesus laid it all down for God and received His glory after His death (John 17). How can my praise be genuine...if it does not echo my heart and come from a place of joy and completeness in God?!? How can I truly stand, if I havent cried, struggled, failed, and persevered?!? God is faithful to meet our requests in a way that truly brings us through shining as gold and Him being obviously...Glorified & Praised.
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the corwn of life that God has promised to those who love him" (James 1:12)
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