Is Prosperity a Trial?

What is your answer?

When it seems there is no way out for me, or when my only answer is to go to the Lord and ask for His leading and provision, it is those times I am most closely walking with Him. When all hope is lost but the One great Hope, this for me is the time when I am most dwelling in the shelter of the Almighty. But when things are going well and life seems to be clicking along "on its own", this is when it is dangerous for me.

I often start to linger less in prayer, if at all, because I have a lot to do to make sure this all gets done- I'm so busy dealing with all these blessings I don't have time to go to the Lord and thank Him for them and pray that He would continue to give them. What kind of stupid thought process is that?

Can you relate? It is so irritating that I would even go this way- but I am human and sin makes us stupid. When we are thirsty we go to the well and we say to ourselves, "I never want to leave here", but then our thirst is quenched and we look around at all that is happening away from the well and we are sucked into going out from the well for too long. If we just get back to the well more frequently we will not end up so parched.

What keeps us close to the well? Fellowship with those who know the thirst quenching strength of the well, the Holy Spirit working in us to give us the desire to always be around the well and a true understanding of how good the water is.

It is difficult for me to have prosperity and not get drawn away from the well, maybe this is why God is not allowing the prosperity I am asking for- maybe He knows I am not ready for that yet. It is hard knowing that much of what we are going through, both in our family's life and at PG is designed, by God, to teach me something. The reason it is hard is because others are depending on me to learn pretty quickly what that lesson may be.

This had to be on the king's mind. Maybe this is why David was always crying out to the Lord- he understood the pressure of getting it right so an entire nation did not have to suffer because of him. He made his mistakes and then had to live with the knowledge that Israel lived in constant warring because of his sin.

I want to learn what God is trying to teach me and I want to learn it quickly so that others don't have to suffer waiting for me to get it. I wonder if there were people under David's rule who could totally see what God was trying to show him, but had to wait for him to get it.

Oh to live close to the well, each and every day desiring to drink deeply. May the Holy Spirit keep me desiring the living water.