Galatians 5:22-23(New King James Version)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

I am learning that many of life’s lessons are birthed from personal pain – we need to see the value of experience and elders all the more. We need to listen to them, to heed and respect their words, for they come from experience. Only experience can yield true wisdom.

What is our level of tolerance? What is the point to which we are willing to endure hardship and pain? We set the bar. We decide how far we are going to be “pushed” and how much we are willing to put up with. It’s one thing if we are being forced to do things that are unethical or simply dead set against the Word of God. It’s one thing if our lives, health or family is being threatened in some way. But it’s another thing altogether when it’s simply our feelings that are involved.

We say things like “Nobody is going to talk to me like that” or “nobody is going to treat me that way” and we ‘justifiably’ walk away from a situation. Maybe we’ve made a commitment to someone or something, but we’ve just experienced the “final straw”. Now we're "done" and our commitment is over.

No man is an island unto himself. In other words, the decisions we make we are convinced “only affect us” almost ALWAYS affect others directly or indirectly in some way. Often “I” becomes the central focus. When that happens, our focus turns to self, and always excludes others. That’s when love for SELF overrides love for OTHERS. Simply put, that is not the example we are given in scripture.

We must realize  the “willingness to endure” not only affects us, but affects others as well. In fact, it’s often others that get hurt more so than we do in those situations. What it really boils down to is an issue of pride. In those instances, we often DO need to consider Jesus (see Hebrews 12:1-4) before we begin only considering self.

The Lord will often challenge us in the area of personal growth. There is going to come a time to “pay the piper” concerning the Word we claim to believe. We will be tested, in practical ways – rest assured.

We must understand 2 very important things when it comes to God’s testing concerning growth:

1) It is never “fun”

2) It will never be on “our terms”

Has anyone else found this to be true?

Stay tuned for the follow up articles.

John 16:33 (New King James Version)
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world

February 15, 2008 will be a day that will live vividly in my memory for a long time. My wife was away on a trip, it was Friday, and I was headed home from work. I was on the phone with my friend (we had previously arranged to go out for dinner) and I had just a few minutes until I reached my house. I got to the driveway, retrieved the mail out of the box, hit the overhead door opener and headed for the garage. It was almost 6:30pm and I guess I didn’t notice that the lights were on in the house.

As I got out of the garage and headed up the back steps, I noticed the inside entry door was open and the lights were on. As I got to the door I looked inside and saw our little dog standing in a pile of broken glass. The glass had been broken out of the door and the trim was torn off the wall and laying on the floor. I wasn’t sure what to make of things at first. A flood of emotions hit me at once: fear, uncertainty, anger – for a moment I was beside myself. I of course got our dog out of the glass and immediately called my wife.

We have a friend that comes over to look after our dogs and let them out when my wife is gone. I didn’t know if some kind of accident happened or what. I even got delusional to the point that I thought it possible the dog or cat ripped the trim off the wall. When my wife answered the phone, unfortunately, she experienced ALL of my emotions. I demanded she give me our friend’s phone number so I could call to possibly get some answers. It turned out that our friend didn’t come over that day. As I walked through the rest of the house, I found most every light on. Then I opened the door to the bedroom and I had my answer.

The bedroom had been ransacked - dresser drawers opened, the mattress moved, stuff laying around everywhere. I immediately knew what happened. Our home was broken into. At this point I called the police. I called my friend who I had previously scheduled dinner with and told him what happened. He hopped in his truck and arrived minutes after the police. I called another friend from work and he told me to get out of the house - probably good advice, but that never entered my mind – I had already been through the house to see that my uninvited guest had made his way all throughout the house. He was long gone. I was left feeling completely and utterly violated.

In my next posts, I want to share some valuable things God showed me as a result of this horrific day. Stay tuned.

Blessings!

Dan Owczarzak

II Corinthians 2:11 (New King James Version) "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices" How many of you had a yo-yo when you were younger? I remember I did. They were a bit of a fad for awhile. It seemed as though everybody had a yo-yo.

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Song of Solomon 2:15 (New King James Version) "15 Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes" The little foxes spoil the vine. It’s the small things in life that get to us.

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Matthew 28:19-20 (New King James Version) "19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen" In Part 1 of “Closing the Gap”, we established why a "gap" between God and man first existed after the fall of Adam.

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