Some thoughts...

Today I feel the need to sit down and blog about some big things that God has been teaching me lately in my walk with Him!  Let me share with where I am coming from.   I am involved in  women's discipleship at our church and the study I am in is on the book of James!  In case you don't know the book of James, it's about trials and many other things (read it if you get a chance)! Well, we all go through trials, some big, some small...but they all are trials in our lives!  Lately, the past few verses we have been studying are how are we responding when we have trials in our life! God's Word says we need  to be PRAISING God and consider it joy when we do encounter trials...hard and crazy to do I know, but God uses those trials to GROW us and challenge us in our relationship with Him!  So many times I have looked at trials as a negative thing, but through the years when we have had trials, especially big ones, God had been teaching me to find JOY and be thankful for those trials!  Looking back to certain trials I realize I really could have trusted God a WHOLE lot more during those times, instead of trying to fix it all on my own!  He is so faithful! 

A verse to leave you with my friends is James 1:2-4 "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."  

So if you are going through a trial right now be praying and meditating on this verse of God's Word that James so faithfully wrote!  Or maybe if you aren't encountering a trial right now, be prayed up and continually in God's Word so when a trial does hit, you will be ready with the Truth to finish strong!  

Thank You Lord for the trials in my life that you have used to grow me up in my relationship with You!  Your not done with me yet!