Preparation....

God is not preparing us for the next big event in our lives, be it a ministry, a tragedy (for some these are synonymous :-) a new stage in life, or anything else that seems "final." There is nothing final on this earth. He is not preparing us to minister to other people. He does that naturally as He develops His likeness in us. God is not preparing us for heaven. God is preparing us for glory. The purpose of our life is not to look forward to heaven but to grow forward to glory. He didn't bring us through last year's trial for the crowning achievement of surviving this year's torture. No, the crowning achievement I think, is when we are truly crowned as His glorified, sanctus-ified, HOLY children...Church......Bride - Here comes the Bride.

It seems that even in our "celebration" of suffering and acknowledgement of God's faithfulness in the hard times, we still find a way to make it about ourselves. It is not. It might be about His glory IN ourselves, and He might be trying to restore the glory of His in us that we once had (but have fallen short of) but it's not about us. It's about Him. Pretty sure of that. Our "next big thing" is maybe only God's next level of faith for us (Romans 1) that will eventually land us at the ultimate destination - holiness. God Himself.