I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. —Jeremiah 10:23

The path to joy is submitting to God’s Plan A or His Plan B. Victor Hugo said, “Like the trampling of a mighty army, so is the force of an idea whose time has come.” If I may paraphrase that, I would say that, like the trampling of a mighty army, so is the force of one’s anointing whose time has come. But one has to wait on God’s time, and if the disciplining continues, God isn’t finished with what we need.

There are, basically, three kinds of chastening, or of God’s discipline:

1. Internal chastening. This is God’s primary way of dealing with us. It is God’s way of trying to get our attention via preaching, teaching, hymns, our daily devotions, and through prayer. I call it God’s Plan A.

2. External chastening. This is Plan B. It is God’s strategy utilizing outside factors such as losing your job, financial reverse, putting you flat on your back, being swallowed by a big fish as Jonah was, or whatever it takes to get your attention.

3. Terminal chastening. I pray that you or I will never need this. It is the worst scenario for a person who has truly been saved. This manner of discipline, generally speaking, usually takes one of two forms: (1) physical death, as when Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11), or (2) stone deafness to the Spirit so that one can no longer hear God’s voice (Heb. 5:11-6:6).

God does not chasten us idly or without reason; it is exactly what we need for the task He has assigned for us. He has a work for you to do that nobody can do as well as you can. Your own gift, or anointing, is unique. But if your time has not yet come, it is because there is a little bit more work for God to do in you.

Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. —Matthew 6:34

Why does God let this happen to me? Why didn’t God do this sooner? Why didn’t God stop this? All of us have questions like this, and there are no sure answers to questions like these.

Why did God allow Abraham and Sarah to reach the age of one hundred and ninety, respectively, before giving Sarah such “strength to conceive”?

Sarah’s foolishness, however, did not remove her from God’s purpose for her. Sarah’s laughing at God did not make Him change His mind. For God was determined to deal with Sarah herself and make her see His glory. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14).

Whether we are facing a major decision, sorrow, illness, bereavement, misunderstanding, or perhaps depression—God’s grace is never wasted by being given to us before we need it.

Sarah’s natural explanation for God’s promise and her natural reaction to His own purpose for her have been repeated by all of us many times. We have manipulated providence and prophecy and judged His promises incredible. But God has also been kind to us, as He was to Sarah—even turning our laughter to godly fear. It is a sign that He is dealing with us, that He wants to include us in His great purpose.

Corrie ten Boom once asked her father, “What is it like to die?” He answered her, “When we take the train to Amsterdam, when do I give you the ticket to hand to the guard?” She replied, “Just before we get off.” Her father then added, “That is the way God deals with us.” God answers our questions when we really need the answers. God supplies the grace when we really need it.

Excerpted from Believing God (MorningStar Publications & Ministries, 1997).

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. —Psalm 143:10

Nearly every person God uses a great deal has broken through the betrayal barrier before they were mightily used. It is not in the pulpit or on a stage or being seen by thousands when you break the betrayal barrier. It is what happens when you are alone. It happens when you have nobody to comfort you, when you are being misunderstood, when people are pointing the finger at you, when everything seems to go wrong, and yet you say, “Yes, Lord.”

Here’s how you can break through the betrayal barrier:

1. Affirm from your heart that what is happening is God’s idea. What is designed to get your attention may be a turnoff, yes, but it is God’s idea to do it this way.

2. Realize this is possibly the greatest opportunity you will ever have to know Him intimately.

3. Pray more than ever. Spend every minute you can in secret with Him without the television on or people interrupting you. I don’t mean for you to become a recluse or retreat into a monastery, but seek Him with all your heart.

4. Walk in the light God gives you. Confess any sin God brings to your attention. Accept any form of new obedience He puts before you.

A person may be in the spotlight before thousands or behind the scenes as a quiet, self-effacing intercessor. In either case, such a vessel of the Holy Spirit will have had to discover God for himself or herself during the hardest of times. This is so that you will believe in God even if nobody else does. To discover God for yourself means that you believe the Bible and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead even if your hero or mentor denies the faith. And what brings about this kind of maturity is breaking the betrayal barrier. This is the path to pure joy.

Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. —Job 13:15, KJV

It is my experience that sooner or later nearly every Christian—virtually ten out of ten—will find some occasion when he or she feels God has betrayed them. But it is also my pastoral experience that roughly only one in ten will breakthrough the betrayal barrier.

Why should I write like this if my statistics are not very encouraging? For this reason: you can be that rare person who does break the betrayal barrier.

Most people, when God is smiling on them, can worship with jubilation, give cheerfully to His work, sacrifice time and pleasure for Him, and be expected to volunteer for any help needed at one’s church. But let God appear to betray them, and these same people, I am ashamed to say, indicate a rather different story. Such people never discover the joy awaiting them on the other side were they to break through the barrier.

Are you wanting more of God? He invites you to break the betrayal barrier. A. W. Tozer used to say that we can have as much of God as we want. I disagreed with that at first. This is because I felt I didn’t have as much of God as I wanted! But I have decided that Tozer was right: we can have as much of God as we want, but that wanting more of Him gets tested—by the betrayal barrier. It comes unexpectedly and at the “worst” time. It is not my feeling of wanting more of God—as when I worship or respond to an inspiring message—that proves I really want more of Him; it is how I respond to things that happen to me later on that proves I really want more of Him.

Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).

O Lord, remember David and all the hardships he endured. —Psalm 132:1

Many people today, especially young people, want everything right now. They don’t want to be prepared. Or maybe you think you are beyond that stage of being prepared because of your age.

Perhaps you feel unappreciated at work, or the conditions in the office are so oppressive and so difficult that it is all you can think about. You can let your situation throw you and become your downfall, or you can accept it as being part of God’s preparation for you and allow it to turn you into one of the strongest human beings that ever lived. That’s what happened to David.

It may be that at some stage in your life God manifested His power and you knew you had a sure word from Him. There is not a single Christian who, at one time or another, doesn’t know the feeling of God speaking to him or her. Then a year goes by, and you begin to think, Lord, did You really speak to me?

David had to wait for years before what was promised him was fulfilled. After being anointed as king, he wasn’t immediately made king; it was only a word from God. David was still subject to Saul and had to flee from him. His anointing seemed to bring nothing but trouble.

One thing you can do while you are waiting is to submit to everything God allows to happen. All of these hardships David endured were part of his preparation.

We should be encouraged to know that whatever hardship we have gone through, even if the hardship was our own fault, God can take our life, work all over again, and make everything look as though it is the way it was supposed to be.

How do we cope with hardships? We have two choices: either we trust our vow to God, which in the end will give us more bondage and more guilt when we inevitably let God down, or  we can trust God’s vow to us. We should trust His Word.

Excerpted from Higher Ground (Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1995).

Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. —Isaiah 45:15, KJV

All disciplining that comes from our heavenly Father is in reality the hiding of His face. If indeed you are a child of God but haven’t experienced the hiding of His face, it is only a matter of time. I say that because we are told, ” … he punishes everyone he accepts” as a son or daughter (Heb. 12:6). There is no warning. We find ourselves enjoying His sweet presence when—without any notice—He seems saliently absent.

The funny thing is that what God uses to get our attention may be the very thing that turns us off about Him! You would think He would use a method or technique that makes Him more loveable—or at least more likeable, but often He seems to do the very thing that He must know is making Him look pretty awful in our eyes at that moment. It is when He seems to turn His back on us. He makes us feel rejected, as though He has dropped us from His good list entirely. It is when He seems disloyal and comes through to us (as best we can tell at the time) as an enemy, not a friend.

To put the purpose of chastening another way, it is given to us that we might break the betrayal barrier in our relationship with God. It is what few Christians (in my opinion) manage to do, at least, at first—and some, sadly, never succeed. A breakthrough in the betrayal barrier is one that will put us squarely on the path to joy.

Do you feel as if God has left you? Be assured that He has not left you in the absolute sense; it only seems that way.

When God hides His face it is not because He has completely left you; it only feels that way.

Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).

And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? —Matthew 21:16, KJV

I wonder whether we realize that God not only cares about the kind of worship we give, but He also really wants our worship. I find it so moving that God should care about my worship of Him.

Our natural reaction to this idea is to think, Well, worship of God by little old me isn’t going to matter to Him! We tend to think that God will take more notice of the worship of more important people, like the president of the United States or an eminent man of God such as Billy Graham. It’s as if we feel He must say, “Ah, this is more like it!” when He sees these kind of people worship. Maybe we don’t say this, but in so many words, isn’t it what we so often secretly feel?

Yet throughout the Bible is the theme that God cares about each individual as though there were no one else to care for. Whether you are five years old, fifty, or ninety years old, God cares about your worship. He is not interested in your status in life; He looks at you.

On Palm Sunday when the children were crying, “Hosanna to the son of David,” the chief priests and scribes didn’t like it. But Jesus said to them, “Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Matt. 21:16, KJV).

You see, not only do so-called unimportant people matter, but God does not care whether or not you are in a strategic position from which to spread His name. You may sometimes think, I’m not going to be able to do anything for God where I am. Why should He show me anything or give me any insights?

What matters to God is not how important you are or how useful you are. All that matters to Him is the quality of your worship.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. —2 Corinthians 8:2

So how do you dignify a trial? Below are eight steps to getting the most out of your trials.

1. Welcome it. Welcome the trial as you would welcome the Holy Spirit, for it is the Holy Spirit who, with the Father and the Son, is behind the whole ordeal. And in this case, He comes with one purpose: for your own good.

2. Don’t panic. Satan’s immediate goal when he is given permission to attack is to get you to panic. This is why he is compared to a roaring lion (1 Pet. 5:8). The reason for the roar is to intimidate and cause fear and panic—to make you think you are defeated even before anything has had a chance to happen.

3. See the trial as a compliment to you from God Himself. This is important. The kind of trial He has allowed you to have is very possibly one that could not be granted to others around you. God gave this trial to you for one reason: you are up to it.

4. Never forget that God allowed it. Satan will want you to focus on yourself, feel self-pity, and blame someone else for it. But realize that this trial has passed through God’s filtering process.

5. Know that there is a purpose in it. There is an intelligent, meaningful reason God allowed it. It is to refine you, teach you a lesson, equip you better, make you more sensitive, teach you self-control, and help you guard your tongue. In other words, to make you more like Jesus.

6. Don’t try to end it. Don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. God will allow it to last as long as it is supposed to last.

7. Don’t grumble. It is a sobering thought that God puts grumbling alongside idolatry and sexual sin in the list of evil deeds that brought His wrath down on ancient Israel (1 Cor. 10:1-12).

8. Know that God wants you to pass the test far more than you do. There are two reasons for this. First, He loves us so much and rejoices to see us experience pure joy. Second, it brings glory to Him when we dignify the trial by cheerfully enduring it.

Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. —James 1:13-14, NAS

There is a difference between a trial and a temptation, although both come from the same Greek word—peirasmos. They are often used interchangeably, though. After all, temptation is a trial (of faith), and every trial is a temptation (to grumble). When the word appears in the New Testament the context helps us to see which interpretation is meant. There are therefore differences and similarities between trials and temptations. Although we must not push the distinctions too far, here are examples of the differences:

1. In their ultimate origin. Temptations come from the flesh; trials are sent from God. He allowed Satan to test Job (Job 1:6-12). Therefore when we speak of “trial” we see God’s fingerprints; when we see temptation, we see our own—or the devil’s.

2. In their immediate origin. Temptation comes from within; trials usually come from outside us. Job suffered physically, but inwardly—at least at first—there was no apparent struggle.

3. In their moral relevance. Temptation, when it is sexual in nature, has considerable moral relevance, but a trial may be what I would want to call morally neutral, such as illness or losing one’s keys.

4. With reference to what is tested. Temptation will usually attack a weak spot; trials test our strength as well as exposing a weakness we may have been unaware of—as with Job, who turned out to be so self-righteous.

Any trial that God sends—death of a loved one or friend, financial reverse, loss, illness, misunderstanding, losing your keys, failure, disappointment, betrayal, abuse, unemployment, depression, accident, loneliness, missing a train or plane, rejection, not getting that important invitation, or any physical pain—should be seen as having our Lord’s handprints all over them.

Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you … —Jeremiah 1:5

God has a plan for you. He has something in mind for you far better than anything that you could come up with. We call it the will of God. You will never do better than His will. Do not ever think you can upstage the will of God. The joy you will experience because you waited on Him is incomparable, because God loves to carry out His plan, as that vindicates Him.

You may say, “Well, He didn’t do a very good job with me. I have emotional scars on my life; I had this happen to me when I was a child, and I wasn’t treated very nice by my parents,” and so on. God says, “I know about that. Do you think that I was looking the other way? I have fashioned you.” (See Psalm 139:14.)

God wants to use you just as you are. God wants you to trust Him in all that has happened to you and fashioned you to make you who you are. He has an idea, and if you wait for Him, He will be vindicated, for He wants to show you what you mean to Him!

The Father’s idea was that He would send His Son, the Lord of eternity, into the world, long before you and I were born, long before there was ever a church or man in the Garden of Eden. He determined it long before He created the sun, the moon, the stars.

Take note of this: God, who had an idea about His Son and what His Son should do, also has an idea about you and what you should do. It is carefully thought out. The very hairs on your head are numbered. And God loves you as though there were no one else to love. It is the same God who sent His Son into the world to say to us, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

Excerpted from Meekness and Majesty (Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1992, 2000).