Dear friends,

God has been working and working. The angels have been busily working to prepare for this hour and what God is going to do. As a Christian, you can look at the circumstances and say to yourself, “God has given up.” That is what Moses did. Nevertheless, if you do, you are deceiving yourself, and you alone will pay the price for it. Now you are growing up, so I am going to tell you something. That is immature. We do not want to be babes forever. For those who are mature and want to go on in God, one thing that must occur is an establishing of faith in the heart for those times when everything appears to be going wrong. You must be born of faith, a faith forged in your heart through the Word, prayer, consistency and faithfulness amidst the trials. The more you walk in this faith, the more you will understand the nature and character of God. Vagaries of shifting seasons will become less important in your life because truth has now penetrated your heart creating in it the knowledge of God. That is what it is all about. It is not about getting something we want, being able to do something we want to do, or living our life the way we want to live it. It is about just the opposite. He picked you up out of the muck and the mire of the world to teach you how to live your life the way you never wanted to live it. In order to do that, He has to create Christ's character in you so that you can recognize truth when it is standing in front of you.

My dear friends, when God speaks truth to me, it breaks my heart—not in a bad way, but in a good way. I love it when the light enters my heart. It shatters the darkness, the deceptions, and the lies. Little by little, He recreates who I was while turning me into who He wants me to be. Keep your eyes continually fixed on Christ because He is the goal. When my eyes are fixed on Him, He shatters the darkness and the light penetrates. I have been forever changed because when the light comes, who wants to lose it? Who wants to look at the truth and say, “How bright you are. How pretty and wonderful you feel in my heart, but it is going to be a short visit.” No, you never want to reject the light of truth because when you lose truth, you also lose a part of Christ from your heart. The Lord loves truth. Truth is what He is. He loves it when He can find someone who also loves it and is willing to pay the price to have the truth. Yes, there is a price for it.

Some years ago, when I was in Israel, the Lord came. He said, “I want to take you some place.” I do not know how this happens, but we were immediately transported to another place. We walked into a room, and suddenly, He was gone from my side. He sat down at a potter's wheel, and He began to work intently with the clay. He punched it, and then He pinched it between His thumbs and fingers as He molded it. The wheel turned gently, but He bruised and wounded this clay as He worked it. Just when I thought that was enough, He put His thumbs down in the middle of it, gouging it. I looked at this, and I thought, “This would be beautiful except I don't think He's talking to me about clay.”

I asked Him, “Lord, what are You doing?” He looked at me, and then His gaze returned to His clay. He continued working with it. I asked Him again, “Lord, what are You doing?” Again, He looked up at me for a moment. Then He looked back down at the clay, and He continued to work, almost violently, with it.

Then He said, “This is Israel, and I will continue working until Israel is what I've created My people to be. I shall not leave this wheel until those whom I have chosen are Mine and who are bringing great glory to the Father.” He was punching, prodding, scraping, and putting a hole in the middle of the clay. By this, I knew Israel was soon to go through many trials. He was bruising and wounding the clay, but what comes out of it on the potter's wheel? If the artisan is skilled, the final result is something very beautiful. Christ is a teacher like none other, and He has a way of getting hold of stubborn people. Trust me, I am Jewish. He has a way of getting hold of us. Before long, the beauty of His work will be evident. That is the way it is with you and with me. Sometimes there is wounding. Sometimes there is bruising. Sometimes people say what you wish they would not have said. Perhaps what they said was not even right, but God is working character in us so that we do not get off track when things like that happen.

We trust Him to do something within a certain time period, and He seems to be taking His good old time. Maybe it is years later, and we think that He has forgotten about us or the promise. We even sometimes think that maybe we are just not important to Him. Nevertheless, He is building the character into which He can deposit truth. I want you to understand that although He likes for you to shine to the world, what He likes best is that you simply shine. He wants your character to be noble and to shine like the light from a diamond. When He looks at you, deep down into your heart, He wants to see the beauty of His Son shining back. He wants to know that you will be faithful no matter what happens. He wants to know that He can trust you through anything. You say, “Well, He already knows if I'll be faithful. He knows whether or not He can trust me.” While that statement is true, there is also work He must first accomplish in you before you can become the person He sees you can be. In other words, He wants to do the work in you that makes you trustworthy and faithful even through the most difficult times.

I was in New Orleans, lying on a sick bed. My heart was so bad that I was within days of not making it. Later on, when I had improved, my doctor told me in the presence of my team, “You, meaning me, should not be here. You do not come that close to death and rise up out of it unless God wills it.” So I was lying there asking the Lord, “How can I do what You've called me to do in this condition? Why did You allow this to happen?” You know what He answered me? “So that you would do what I've called you to do.” That was certainly not the way I would think, but He knows what it takes to make that clay into a most beautiful display as it sits on the potter's wheel. I had to go through that experience in order to reach the place where He wants me to go. So I cannot sit around, whining and complaining, because love has done it. Love has waited that He may come and deliver.

I am telling you the truth. Everything He does, He does out of love. This is true even when we are dealing with the severity of God. Sometimes He has to cut the tree down and let it come up from the root again, but when that happens, it is because love knows this is the only way. He said to me, “I always choose the easiest path. I always do it the easiest way, Nita. I want you to know that.” Sometimes things can get very difficult, but He has chosen the best and easiest way to refine and change you so that He can bless you.

To be continued next week...

In His Amazing Love,

Nita (LaFond) Johnson