Finding Strength in Christ Amid CrisisSample

Join God in Your Growth

During my late twenties and early thirties, most difficulties seemed to launch me onto an emotional roller coaster. I was young, immature, and quick to fall into emotional despair. When my husband and I moved to Indonesia, those first weeks were filled with emotional desperation. I can remember holding in my fear and hiding it because I was a "missionary.” But when I was alone with God, I was forced to be real. I found myself begging Him, "Unless you change the situation (like take us back home) or change me from the inside out then I am surely dead." 

We did not go home. God met me as I approached Him in the Word and prayer. I was forlorn. I was very needy. And not a very nice person. Amazingly, God changed me. So, many years later, I see that living in Indonesia was a training ground for letting God have all of me to do as He wanted in me. He did far more in me than through me.

The journey of personal change rooted in growth (or transformation) is promised in Philippians 1:6: "I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return]."

Indeed, God has each of his sons and daughters “in the process of His Good Work in us.” It will take a lifetime to perfect that work. This journey of growth and change depends on Him working in me and requires that I join up with God and let Him grow me.

I can avoid God when tragic circumstances happen. I can back away or even run away from God when He wants to change me. I can hide inside my hysterical prison of fear. I can avoid these things and work at appearing to be godly. None of these responses will satiate my deepest longings. God wants to take my hand, fill my spirit, and strengthen me.