At the Bottom

To place ourselves in range of God's choicest gifts, we have to walk with God, work with God, lean on God, cling to God, come to have the sense and feel of God, refer all things to God.   Neal Plantinga

Have you ever noticed how everything we do in life starts at the bottom?  When you go to school you start out in kindergarten.  Then you go to junior high and start at the bottom again.  You move to high school and there you are a freshman again starting at the bottom.  You go to college, and your right back at the bottom, a freshman.  You get a job and there you are again at the bottom.    

What we learn through this process is that when we start out at anything in this world we will most likely start at the bottom.  This is no different for a new Christian.  Do you remember the excitement you had when you first became a Christian?  How many of us falter when we are at the bottom.  We all do.  One of the reasons we stumble is because we don’t know everything we need to know to be more like Christ.  If we are wise we learn that if you are starting at the bottom there will be hard times getting to the top.  If we are wiser still, we will learn that God is the glue that holds us together in the hard times. 

Our Christian life is a refining process.  It starts out when we are young and continues through adulthood.  Everything we do can either help or hinder this process.  For us to benefit the most from the refining process of life, we will need to perform some action.  We must be walking, working, leaning, clinging and referring.  The word that comes to mind for me is we must be dependent; dependent on the One who created us.  If we are depending on ourselves for everything; we may make it to the top by worldly standards, but we won’t come to know God our heavenly Creator.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, it is interesting that we always must start at the bottom in life.  How I handle the bottom of life will make a difference in my eternal life.  I praise You for giving me the bottoms of life as they help me to know You better and to become more like Jesus.  The only direction to go from the bottom is up.  Keep me focused so that I am always heading in Your direction.  

    

Scripture: Loving God Under Trials

Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.  James 1:12-18