Obedience training...

As I was walking my son's dog Bear, I decided to let him walk part of the way w/o being on the leash. I came to this decision b/c in my yard on a couple of different occasions he had proven to me that he could be trusted to come when called even when sorely tempted by other stimuli (namely other animals or people). Also, he is very friendly so I wasn't worried he would attack. I went for my morning walk, and decided to give Bear a chance off the leash. What happened was one really happy dog that had some freedom he had not had on a walk with me before. He was bouncing and jumping and running for joy b/c of the freedom he was partaking in. My son-in-law has a dog too, her name is Lisa and in our home with family she is a mild mannered dog. The difference between the dogs is Lisa cannot be trusted with obeying if distracted, and she is very aggressive with other animals and people she doesn't know. The direct result of this behavior is she doesn't get the freedom Bear has. It is not because I love her less, it is because she doesn't obey and I cannot trust her. So as I was noticing this I was thinking that God has probably felt the same way about me and you! If we don't have the freedom in our relationship with God we desire we might want to look at a couple of things. First, are we obeying Him, and second can we be trusted? Bear got to enjoy freedom just because he was obedient and trustworthy. How many of us in a relationship with the Almighty, can be trusted by God to be obedient? How many of us can be trusted to be kind and loving to His other kids? The sad thing is that most of the time, we are the ones that derail the freedom and blessing God desires to give to us. I want to be able to take Lisa out and have her enjoy the same freedom and happiness Bear did, but she has limited my ability to be able to bless her. How many blessings have we forfeited, how much joy have we missed just because God could not trust us? Obedience at the time can seem very stifling and limiting, and can feel the like it's the furthest thing away from what we consider freedom. When we have to lay our will down to do another's bidding, it can feel like we have no freedom, but that is not the case. Maybe we don't understand what freedom is. Freedom is not getting to do what we want to do when we want to do it. Real freedom is found in boundaries and basic laws that govern a home and society that create order. There is no freedom in chaos. God is a God of order and of freedom and these two work hand in hand. In order for a business to do well someone has to be in charge that tells others what to do, when to do it and how to do it. That brings about freedom to get a job done correctly, and doing the job right creates financial freedom b/c others want to employ your company. Real freedom is found in humble submission. Just look at Jesus, He is King of Kings and yet He humbly submitted Himself to His creation because He knew that the end result was freedom! The Word says Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered. Well, if we are following Him, we are going to have to go down that same road and learn obedience through things we have to suffer through. This obedience will bring us freedom, exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or think, just like Bear experienced. We must show ourselves faithful to obey and faithful to be trusted in order to have our lives be the exceedingly abundant life God wants for us. If Bear had not shown me he could obey in my yard, he would not have had the freedom in the town green he was given. An exceedingly abundant life just doesn't happen to us. We have a free will that needs to choose to do what God asks us to do so we can be conformed to His image. We are not supposed to get God to conform to ours, people, yet that is what most of us try to do! So in order to have that abundant life, we have to show God we can be trusted to do things His way, when He wants it done, how He wants it done, no matter how we may feel about it. More later…..v

From the inside out

At church on Sunday a sermon was preached about Jonah, and it got me to thinking about this guy. Here he is, a prophet of God, yet gets mad at God, tells God off, and God let him do it! It's amazing to me how much God put up with b/c this guy is God's creation, yet he had the nerve to talk back to the Almighty and live to tell about it! Just goes to show that God never ever will give up on us. Jonah disobeyed, did what he wanted, and ran away trying to get away from what God told him to do. In Jonah's case God wanted him to preach to the capital of what was then Assyria, and these people did awful things to the Jews, so the Jewish people hated them. This is why Jonah was so mad at God—he thought that God should annihilate these people who were so cruel to God's chosen, but God's mercy prevailed. Thank God His mercies are new for us each and every day. Anyway, Jonah gets on this boat, and God sends a storm b/c He is not going to let Jonah go that easily. It's comforting to note that God ran after Jonah, even in his disobedience, because his love never fails. So Jonah gets thrown into the sea, and God arranges for Jonah to be hidden inside a huge fish, being bounced around its stomach as the fish navigates Jonah towards God's destination. All this time God is breaking Jonah down and he begins to pray in that awful place, crying out to God. Jonah finds God in that dark place, a place filled with stomach acid and other creatures being digested by it. A nasty, dark, stifling place constantly rocking to and fro, up and down, falling forward as the fish dived down, getting covered in slime. There were no benches to sit on, no stable place to rest. Everything was constantly shifting and moving and extremely uncomfortable. He had no idea how long he would be in there. He was broken in this place of misery and darkness and uncertainty. He acknowledges God did this, he doesn't blame the people that threw him overboard, or the fish, he knows God's hand is all over every nasty circumstance he is facing. Jonah says he is in the abyss which is a deep immeasurable space, a bottomless void that seems never ending. Jonah went to the very bottom and felt like he was in prison forever. His hope was gone, he felt crushed by the weight of his hopelessness and helplessness---then revelation comes---he earnestly and seriously remembered the Lord which made him remember who he was too. He repented and declares the truth that God is a savior who saves! He comes to his senses in the midst of the darkness, the cold, the hunger, the loneliness, covered in muck and mire, with nothing to hold on to---in the middle of all this he begins to thank God and surrenders his will to do God's will. Nothing changes for him until he bows the knee in surrender, and when that happens, God releases Jonah from the darkness and deposits him in the very place he ran away from. Jonah goes ahead and obeys even though he completely disagrees with God, and God is okay with that---He says in His word to obey is better than sacrifice. Even though Jonah's prejudices were still intact God is pleased with his obedience, so God uses Jonah in spite of what his attitudes are. This story gives me hope that if God can look past Jonah's obvious issues and still use him, that God will use me in spite of myself. The first step that Jonah took was surrendering to God. The next step was the attitude, and as we obey God (even if we don't want to) it is a fact that the act of obedience will bring about a heart change in us. I remember a teacher I couldn't stand the sight of, and my youth pastor told me to act out what love was upon her. I didn't want to, but he said to me that as I do the acts of love the feelings will eventually follow. So I did what he said, and he was right! God used that teacher to show me my musical abilities. I don't think I would be here today if not for her---and I did end up really loving her. So Jonah's obedience---our obedience---does change us from the inside out…-v

The Solid Rock

I have a friend who owns a pool company and when I called him this week, he said to me he was in the bottom of a pool and couldn't talk. That got me to thinking about what we are standing in or on in our spiritual lives. We may be standing in a pool of thankfulness that gives us buoyancy to float on the circumstances of life, or we may be in a pool of despondency that is like quick sand and sucks us down till we can't breathe. Every attitude can be a pool we sink or swim in depending on what we fill our thought lives with. We can build one of superiority, or humility, repentance or regret, resentment or acceptance. Jesus said our lives are like a house that can either be built on a solid foundation that won't give way during the storms of life or a poor foundation that falls apart when the winds of adversity blow. The deal here is the foundation will either cause the house to be saved or destroyed. Of course our foundation is to be Christ, but if we are standing on The Solid Rock, our attitudes will reflect that by conforming to His. If our attitudes towards each other are not based out of love, then we need to examine what foundation we are standing upon. If we are standing on Christ as our foundation, then the truth is welcome---we will have no problem with people speaking into our lives, we are teachable, reachable and repentant. We will see things from His perspective and throw off the things that bind us to the old man and reach forward to grab the clothing of the new man-----compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness, to name a few. These things moving freely in our lives show us we are building upon His foundation. When things like anger, bitterness, jealousy, depression, impatience and disobedience move freely in our lives it shows us we are building upon quite a different foundation. The occasional fight with sinful attitudes is to be expected, but a life that does not deal with them quickly will cause them to become a foundation of belief and reaction, and then before we know it, we're stuck in the mire at the bottom of a cesspool. These attitudes get a life of their own, living it out through our thoughts and emotions, pulling us this way and that, until we feel totally out of control. The only answer is the Light of the World who came to destroy the works of the devil. Those works begin with the heart of the believer, submitting to everything that God throws our way with the humility of the clay that allows the Potter to shape and reshape, to cut away or add to, and to finally throw in the kiln where the fire tests all that has been done. God came to destroy the devils works and that must begin through us. Every stronghold of hate we tear down with love, every foothold of fear we overcome with truth, and every area where our will is being done that we replace with His will---this destroys the works of the devil. We are only in control of one thing on this earth and that is ourselves. So as we control our lives and make it obey God, we overcome the world in us, and therefore destroy the works of the devil being made manifest through us. The Light of the World is here to show us the way clearly and clearly can only come when we can see everything---all the obstacles in our way so we can overcome them, all the paths available good and bad so we can choose wisely. Let's not hide from the truth about what in us needs to change---let's become part of an army that will have the courage to destroy the works of the devil in our own lives first, and so be able to say---the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fall because it had been founded on a Rock…….v

The fabric of our lives

Relationship is what the kingdom of God is all about. God wants our relationship with Him open, free, and honest, and He wants our relationships with each other to be the same. When God created mankind, He had in mind a relationship that was as equal as creation and Creator could get. He made us in His image, so all the emotions, desires for love and acceptance, our need to have things be balanced and rightly done around us---they all come from an image that He stamped on us that mirrored His own. Our emotions and reactions are not as crazy as they may seem b/c when you think about it, they are the same ones God has towards us, minus the ever present sin issue that brings a selfishness into the equation God simply does not have. Relationship is paramount to God and when relationship between brothers is broken, God's heart is broken. That should give us pause on how we feel justified in treating each other. In this society we live in it is okay to think of yourself first---as a matter of fact, it has become the new mantra of the day. To thine own self be true…..the problem with that is real love is not selfish. That does not mean you let people abuse you and walk all over you. It doesn't mean we don't set boundaries and decide who we give our hearts to with great care. It means that those people God has put in our lives need to have us demonstrate our love to them by putting their needs above our own. That sounds imbalanced and a little scary, but the scripture is very clear. This is what God does for us every moment of every day. We may not think that is the case when we lose a job for the 3rd time in a row, or when people let us down or don't keep their word, but in all the difficulties God is looking way ahead towards our future happiness. He is doing what is best for us and putting His need to be appreciated aside as we rail against Him for taking this or that away from us. While God is setting the stage for the very best to happen to us He willingly takes tons of abuse from His own kids! He puts our needs above His need to be loved by us just to make sure that our lives actually turn out the best they can be. God puts up with a lot from us, and He wants us to do the same with each other. He models patience and kindness on a daily basis. Losing a job may not feel much like kindness but believe me, it can be! God knows what our true hearts desires are. We may think we know, but I have been very thankful numerous times for prayers that went unanswered about things I was sure was the fulfillment of my hearts desire. I look back now, and see the wisdom of God in removing that thing from my life, or putting me in a position that I felt nearly destroyed me. What it really did was set the stage for what my heart was truly crying out for, and God knew the deepest cry of my heart and was answering that sound, not the surface stuff I thought I needed. Putting someone's needs first doesn't mean you give them what they think they need. It means you give them what they actually need, and that could mean taking stuff away instead of handing them things. Relationships make up the fabric of our lives---God Himself said it was not good for man to be alone. He created Eve so an entire human race could be born so we wouldn't be alone! God knew what loneliness was and didn't want that for us. Let's take care and guard the relationships God has allowed in our lives with love, honor, and appreciation, and in so doing we will actually be doing this to Him, b/c Jesus said:
"whatever you do to the least of your brothers you do it to Me" --v

Two kinds of Wisdom

Did you know there were two kinds of wisdom? Check out this definition in James 3:13-17 of what it is, and what it is not.
13 Who is there among you who is wise? Then let him by his noble living show forth his good works with humility which is the proper attribute of true wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance the Truth. 15 This superficial wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil practices.
17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). It is willing to yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity.
Scripture says that we can either operate in wisdom that is earthly and demonic, or wisdom that is from above proceeding from God. How do we know the difference? By the fruit. Wisdom based on the unspiritual, fleshly responses to knowledge we may have, and experiences we have walked through will have corresponding fruit. The fruit we can expect from this type of wisdom are--- confusion, unrest, rebellion, pride and all sorts of evil practices. When the fruit of choices and paths we have decided to go down involves fruit like any one of these listed, be sure to know that the wisdom used to justify our choice is not from God. If we have unforgiveness, bitterness, or anger and try to make a wise decision, our defiled hearts can only lead us to the wisdom that is earthly. The wisdom from God is first of all pure, or undefiled. A defiled heart cannot make decisions based on Godly wisdom. If our hearts are defiled with the attitudes of the enemy, then we will be led to wisdom that is from the enemy. If we have given ourselves over to anything not of love, we will be resonating on satan's frequency, therefore we will be attracted to the wisdom that emanates from him. If our desire is to be led by the wisdom that is from God, we must have checks and balances around us with the Word of God, and people we make ourselves accountable to. Scripture says in the multitude of godly counsel there is wisdom.
It makes sense that God's wisdom has purity as the first thing on the list, b/c it is the pure in heart that see God! We need to have our eyes wide open and able to see clearly so we can make wise choices. A pure, undefiled heart is especially necessary when making any life decisions. Our destiny can be forever changed by ungodly wisdom. Just look at Saul. His unwise choice cost him his kingdom and his destiny. But Saul’s demise didn't begin with an unwise choice, it began with an impure heart. Keeping our hearts pure is very important to seeing the destiny for our life be fulfilled. Another powerful fruit of godly wisdom is Peace. Scripture says we shall go out with joy and be led forth by peace. Wisdom loves peace, b/c God leads us with it! It is a wise person that follows God's leading. He always leads us in triumph when we pick up His weapons and walk in the peace He guides us with. God's wisdom will also show itself when the choices we make show consideration of each others strengths and weakness, and we treat each other with gentleness and humility. The wise heart is teachable, and feels others pain. Wisdom gives its whole heart to truth---you never have to wonder where you stand with someone operating in God's wisdom, b/c this wisdom calls us to be straight shooters. God's wisdom is impartial, meaning that whoever or whatever is on the side of God and His truth will have wisdom's vote.
I think it is a good idea for us to examine ourselves on a regular basis to see what fruit comes forth from decisions we make. This will tell us what wisdom we are basing our choices on, and then hopefully, if you are like me and want only God's wisdom operating in your life, we can amend our choices to line up with the fruit that is only from above.---V

Wisdom

It’s amazing how eyesight changes over the course of ones life. Just a few years ago I could read everything without any help, and now I need glasses to read anything! In the natural realm, our eyesight gets dimmer, our ability to distinguish small letters fades, and we need more light to rightly observe things. But in the spiritual realm, if we are pressing in, our spiritual eyesight becomes better and better as we go through experiences that give us wisdom. Knowledge is good, but when you add experience to it you find wisdom, and wisdom is like reading glasses for the soul. It helps us see what is already there with clarity. Wisdom allows us to see beyond what is happening in the here and now, and respond to a future outcome. When we were kids, we had limited knowledge, and acted on what we thought was all there was to know. Many of us are still children in how we view the circumstances in our lives. We take the limited knowledge of certain situations we are involved in and run with it. Many of us will not allow ourselves to go through certain experiences especially if they are painful ones that will teach us the lessons of wisdom. We avoid them like the plague and thus end up knowing a lot about stuff but having no life giving application that wisdom brings. Wisdom is a forward looking revelation to the mind about our current situations. It helps us see a future outcome so we can act accordingly. Knowledge is a very right now kind of thing. It can only live in the today’s and yesterdays of our lives because it is limited to what it thinks it knows. It does not have the color spectrum wisdom brings with it. Black and white knowledge cannot understand the depth perception that the colors of experience bring. If we observe those who operate mainly by head knowledge we will find they are the ones the Bible describes as ---people ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. If we are looking for the truth and not just trying to be right, we will need wisdom. Knowledge alone can lead us astray. What we know (or think we know) can set the course of our lives but if we allow experiences to occur, wisdom comes in and shows us the deeper truth of the matter and will reset our direction if we let it. It was the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve ate. Eve believed the devils lie because she wanted knowledge. Instead of reminding herself of her experiences with God, and her knowledge of God, she ignored all that, cast wisdom aside----which made her vulnerable-----so she then received the lie as truth. We have to be very careful not to place ourselves in that same vulnerable position where we can exchange the truth for lies based on what we think we know. Humanity was set on a course that caused us to be on an unending quest for more and more knowledge! Satan doesn't care what we know because he can easily manipulate that. What satan is afraid of are Christians armed with wisdom! Wisdom knows what the truth is and that truth sets us free! Proverbs 3:15 "Godly wisdom is more precious than rubies and nothing you can wish for can be compared to her!" ---V

Words of Life

As I was reading in John 6, Jesus accuses the crowd of following Him just because He fed them. Then this crowd says to Him that Moses proved God was with him b/c manna came from heaven---what can you do to prove you are who you say? Jesus explains by going into the whole---I am the Bread of Life thing, and tells the people unless they eat my flesh and drink my blood they can't be my disciple. That was the test to see whose hearts really were after God or just after what God could do. At the end of the chapter it says the crowd couldn't handle what Jesus was saying so they all left Him. Then Jesus turns to the 12 and says—are you gonna leave me too? Peter replies—to whom shall we go? You have the words of life! Smart guy that Peter! Anyway, what struck me in this story is how God created this complicated situation. I am sure if we were to handle it today at a regular church service we would tell people how easy it is to ask Jesus in your heart---just pray a prayer and make it simple to understand and easy to do. This is why we have so many people calling themselves born again Christians that haven't the slightest idea of what that entails. Jesus Himself made it very complicated and even repulsive with the word picture of eating His flesh he presented. But all this was to weed out the true believers from the ones just looking for food……
So the question to ask ourselves is this----what are we looking for? Are we chasing after a relationship with God that can be complicated and uncomfortable to be a part of? Are we willing to hear stuff that sounds repulsive to our sensibilities believing that they are Words of life? These people were told by God Himself stuff that was exactly the opposite of what they wanted to hear. And they made a choice to walk away because what He said was just too hard to bear. God isn't kidding when He says He wants everything we are, everything we hope for, everything we think or do. He wants a relationship with us that will allow Him to say really hard to bear things, and us being able to receive them just by shear faith in knowing He has the words of LIFE. All life begins in darkness---the womb, seeds in the ground, in fact, in order to have life, a seed must go into the dark ground, die a solitary death, then and only then, does life begin. We have got to stop kicking against what God has allowed so our will can line up with His will. We have got to stop mourning over the Saul’s in our lives----let me explain. The prophet Samuel anointed Saul as King, and Samuel loved Saul. At one point, Saul was given a command to wipe out a city, down to the animals, and he didn't do it. God saw it, told Samuel to go tell Saul he was no longer going to be king because of his disobedience. When confronted, Saul insisted he had obeyed God even when proof was given. Only when he realized it was going to cost him his kingdom did he try to rectify the situation, but it was to late. Samuel loved Saul and mourned over the loss for a long while. Finally, God had enough and said to Samuel---how long are you going to mourn over Saul? Get up, wipe off your face, and get going b/c I want you to anoint a man named David as king in Saul's place. We do this a lot people---we mourn over the "Saul's" in our lives! Things and jobs, people and dreams that maybe once were a God thing, but disobedience has changed. God allowed Samuel more than enough time to mourn, and it's okay to mourn---for awhile. But there comes a place in our lives when we need to wash our face, and get up because God has a new future in store for us. A future that is earmarked with obedience and faith, one that is about a relationship with God and not about what or who He will provide for us. God often brings up hard things in an unpalatable way to see what we are really after. If we are after His heart, even if He presents us with difficult new paths to follow, we have to follow, because a heart in a relationship with God must say like Peter---where else could we go?—You have the words of life! V

The Creator's frequency

I've been learning a lot about energy these past few days. I have always known that the law of sowing a reaping (what you sow, or plant, you will reap a harvest of) is a universal law set up at the beginning by the Creator. I know a lot of people, saved or not, understand the principle of "what goes around comes around, or you call to you what you put out into the universe." These are just different ways to describe the law of sowing and reaping spoken of in the Bible. What I really didn't give much thought to was that we are beings made up of energy, in a world made up of energy---rocks, people, plants, animals---we all exude an energy frequency. Since God created the world, and everyone and everything in it, He made us all to resonate on certain frequencies. These frequencies can and do affect each other. In the world of radio's, cell phones and the like, we know certain frequencies are captured by other frequencies and communication takes place. God made His entire creation to resonate on His frequency so communication can take place between God and us, and you and I. When we choose to resonate on a frequency different from His by holding onto bitterness, shame, guilt, unforgiveness, etc. we end up communicating to that particular unholy energy frequency and connecting with it for a response. And a response will come. When we tap into the enemy's frequency, the longer we hang there with anger, blame, depression, fear, etc., the more we begin to resonate at his frequency. Then the communication from our spirit to God's gets really messed up because we are off. We become in sync with what energy we are most exposed to (you become like those you are around). My mom says there is an old Italian saying that goes like this---walk with a man with a limp long enough and soon you will begin limping. That is the way of this world God created---all energy is affected by the energy around it. Scripture puts it this way---bad company will corrupt good morals. If we are tapping into the wrong communication line we will end up out of sync with God's energy—the Holy Spirit! He is the life that is teeming about us, around us, within us, but the catch is to capture His life and communicate and connect with it. When we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we call forth from all the energy around us---that God placed there----we call to us more of the Holy Spirit's life and power. The energy around us must bow down to the Creator's design. We must bow down to the Creator's design. We have a choice, every moment of every day to bow to the Holy Spirits energy and life force, or to tap in to the enemy's frequency and resonate with him. Choose you this day whom you will serve, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord…… V

Pressure

I've been learning a lot about God's grace lately. I know that the main Greek meaning of this word is 'divine enablement', but I got a taste of that divine support in a new way while up in Minnesota……
When push comes to shove, who we really are comes out under pressure. That is when we see whether we've learned lessons God has been trying to teach us or whether we have just fooled ourselves into thinking we've learned them. Pressure is the test to see what's going on in that heart of ours. Pressure can come in many ways---from people's reactions---to circumstances changing around us. What God is looking for is our reaction so we can see exactly where we are (or are not) spiritually and then can address it. I find it helpful to look at what we don't want to do, what we don't like, and maybe even hate or dread to show us a glimpse of the placement of our heart in the spiritual puzzle of our lives. We are tricky beings, we humans---we have a way of deceiving ourselves into thinking we are something we are not---I know, b/c I have experienced this first hand. What tells us what is going on inside can be easily measured by the things we don't want to do, people we don't want to see, and places we don't want to go. Usually we look at the opposite—where you spend your time and energy shows you where your heart is—scripture backs this up by saying where your heart is there your treasure will be found. This is also a good way to see what is going on inside of us---I'm not negating using that tool, I am just saying lets look at it from another perspective and maybe we might get more insight. The point is to become more like God and release the things that keep that from happening, so we need to use every tool at our disposal. While in MN I had to do things I did not want to do and go where I didn't want to go. As I made myself do this, like I had many times in the past, I found out something about myself—my heart had changed, I mean really changed. I realized this by being in the middle of the dreaded people and places, attitudes and actions of those I would have rather avoided. It was this pressure that showed me my heart had finally changed, and God's love and grace was there in place of all the rampant emotions I had experienced every time prior. It was really cool to see God's grace at work and His love covering everything. It was like an out of body experience. God was living His life thru me in a way I could not imagine. I would recommend to anyone reading this to take stock in the things they dread and ask themselves why—what is it about this place or person or thing that bothers me so much. Maybe it is us that God is trying to change and not what or who we dread. When we run from the pressure we tie up a huge tool of God's that He uses to shape us. I used to run from lots of pressures---trying to find "peace". Little did I realize that the very pressure I was running from was actually the doorway to the peace I was craving so badly. Diamonds aren't made without pressure, they are just a lump of coal without pressure. If we run from the pressure we are not as useful to the Father as He intended for us to be. Coal is useful in its natural state, but its use is much different after becoming a diamond. In its natural state, coal is used as fuel, then becomes dust and ash. When pressure is brought to bear and a diamond is made from that raw material, you have something that will last forever, and fire cannot destroy it---in fact, diamonds are nearly indestructible. A diamond would never have been created if the coal would have refused the pressure that transformed it. The pressure transformed its value, usefulness, lifespan, strength, beauty, and desirability. People don't display hunks of coal on their fingers. God cannot display us the way He wants to until we submit to the pressure He has surrounded us with, walk into the fiery furnace and come out the other side changed forever. This is where I am headed, people, and I hope to see you all on the road peppered with pressures that transform us all into His image. --V