"Stand Your Ground" - Greg Laurie Daily Devotion - Jan. 20, 2011

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Stand Your Ground

When the messengers of John had departed, He began to speak to the multitudes concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?" —Luke 7:24

A traveler who was visiting a logging area in the northwestern United States watched with great interest as a lumberjack walking alongside a mountain stream periodically jagged his sharp hook into a log and separated it from the others. The traveler asked the logger what he was doing.

"Well, these logs may all look alike to you," the logger said, "but I recognize that some of them are quite different. The ones that I let pass are from trees that grow in a valley, where they are always protected from the storms. The grain on those logs is rather course. But the logs I pull aside come from high up in the mountains, where they are beaten by strong winds from the time they are quite small. This toughens the trees and gives them a fine grain. We save these for choice work. They are too good to be used for ordinary lumber."

Maybe you are facing winds of adversity right now, and you wonder why. Could it be that God is saving you for a choice work? Could it be that He is allowing you to go through hardship so you will be able to do something unique that He has in store for you?

There are also winds of temptation that blow in our lives. These hot winds of enticement come out of nowhere. Then there are the winds of compromise. Like soft summer breezes, these winds can lull us into doing the wrong thing.

We need to stand our ground. We need to hold our course. Whatever we are facing, we don't have to face it alone. There is a God who cares. We need to trust Him. And we need to remember that He will never give us more than we can handle.

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