Hello everyone,
If you’ve read my book, Lessons I learned from the Lord, you know that one of my favorite childhood movies was the Wizard of Oz. God often teaches me through the ordinary things in life. Dorothy finds out that there is no wizard at the end of the movie, but it’s the journey that mattered most.
Our journey is a series of life’s lessons. The lessons that we learn along the way are what is most important. Like Dorothy, it’s the people that we meet along the way that help us to grow. Some people, although they don’t realize it, help us to grow by causing us difficulties. They help us grow in patience, strength, and endurance. They help us to grow to trust in the Lord.
Some people are those that help us grow in kindness. They show unselfishness and sweetness to us even when they have their own problems. They think of others first and make us feel special. But all help us to grow in love. Even the ones who are difficult help us to love as Jesus loves. I have learned a lot from people’s kindness. Their kindness has shown me where I fall short in my own life.
The hardest thing to learn is to love your enemies – those that do you harm. The secret is to know that God turns all things for good. When we realize this, we can rest knowing that we will be victorious – if we put it in His hands.
One of the neatest things about the Lord is that He gives us what we need ahead of time. About a week before someone did something mean to me, every day, several times a day, I would hear in my spirit – the battle belongs to the Lord. Or I would hear, the battle is Mine says the Lord. I would wake up at night with these words, or the song that has these very words. With the song, it was so much in my spirit that whether asleep or awake, it just kept re-playing over and over again. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. God was preparing me for what was to come. When it did, I knew that God had it all taken care of. Sure enough, He worked it out for my good.
So often we want our journey to take us to the “wizard” so that all our problems disappear. When all along it’s the journey that teaches us our greatest lessons. They prepare us at the end of our journey to meet our wonderful Lord – who is all love, all wisdom – and the best teacher of all!
Blessings, Evelyn
To read my articles on Inner Voice Magazine, go to www.innervoicemag.com and click on Faith, then Reflections and then the title. Previous titles are Do-Overs, God’s Love Notes, End of your Rope, and new upcoming article, Just Whistle.