When we are grasping for lifelines, when we are in tears, when we feel that our lives are unraveling, in those very moments when we most need the Lord to intervene and change our lives the most dramatically we often make the statement "Take it away Lord!"  In the most difficult challenges of our lives we look to God and often ask Him to take it away, to erase the trial, to change the circumstance, or to take us out of it.  Yet, He most often chooses to leave it as it is, to leave us in it, to make us endure the trial.  We must therefore ask ourselves why He does this, because when the Lord does something there is a reason.

I asked God to do that for me in the midst of my trial, more then once, and I asked Him why He didn’t, why He made me endure it.  His answer every time was to stop asking Him to take it away and to start depending on Him for the strength I needed to endure it, and to allow Him to take away the fear I had that made me ask Him to remove it.   It is fear that forces us to ask Him to do this, because we fear we will not endure.  He was forcing me to depend on Him rather then on myself for what I needed to endure the trial.  He was answering the promises He had made to give me strength, comfort, peace, and shelter.  He was changing who I was while I was enduring the trial, He was changing me more then ever before during my walk with Him.  He was molding me into who He desired me to be.

So is He going to take us out of the trial or change the circumstances around us when we cry out desperately to Him in trial? Only if that is what will give Him the most glory. U sing every circumstance to mold us into the person He needs us to be, to do what He wants us to do for Him is what He chooses instead. Molding us is His desire.  As we become more and more like Him our fellowship with Him is more intimate. He died so that He would once again have fellowship with us. Why would He remove that which allows Him to mold us the most?  Molds us the most? Yes, admit it, trial molds us the most. At least I can admit that, for I know that in the years I have faced my trial with the Lord I have learned more about the Lord and His desires for my life then in all the years I walked with Him previous to that.  As a result of that my relationship with Him is more intimate, and that is His desire.

So the Lord chooses not to remove us from trial in order to mold us, to teach us, to show us how He works in our lives, so that we will depend on Him so that our level of intimacy with Him will increase immeasurably.  I know that the Lord is molding me in the midst of trial, that He is fulfilling His promises while doing that, and that He so desires to have fellowship with me that He died to gain that.  I am certainly not going to squander that, I am going to lay myself upon God’s Anvil and allow Him to make me more and more like Him every day so that my fellowship with Him can become more intimate. For I know that as that fellowship gains intimacy I gain more insight into who my Lord is, what He desires of me, and how I can fulfill that. After all, pleasing Him is my most ultimate desire.

Whenever we go on a trip we get so excited, we plan ahead, we make all the arrangements, we talk about it for weeks, sometimes months.  We tell others about it, we pack ahead of time, we might even buy new things to take along.  For those few days leading up to the trip it consumes our time.  When we arrive we enjoy all of it, we take it in because our level of excitement for the going was so high that we want to soak it all up, not miss anything.

We all go different places for different reasons, but we all do this don’t we?  It is true, maybe to a different level or degree depending on where we are going and why, but we do it.  Then that point comes where we say.  "I can’t wait to tell so and so about this".  Why is it that we can be on the most amazing trip and still think of home?  Because regardless of where we are home is where we have emotionally attached ourselves to.  You can be on the most exciting trip to the most exciting place you have ever been, but have you ever noticed that it isn’t complete somehow until you have gone home, sat in your home, reflected on the experience and then shared it with the people who are in your life.  That completes the trip because it connects it to the life you live everyday, it attaches it to the people and the place you are emotionally attached to.

All of our experiences in life are the same way.  When something exciting happens in our life, we want to share it with those closest to us to have someone to celebrate with.  When something not so good happens, we go to those closest to us to get support, help, encouragement, and sometimes just a shoulder to cry on.  The people we think of on those trips and say "I can’t wait to tell so and so about this!" are likely the same people who hear about all the other things in our life every day.  So here is a question-Who is that person in your life?

For every one of us there is someone who is waiting to hear about everything.  About our trips-yes.  About our experiences-yes.  Whether good bad indifferent-yes.  Even if we have bags we packed years ago in our life, and have carried around on this trip, we can unpack them, talk about them, even cry over them if we have to.  Every experience, every moment, He is waiting to listen.  It is just a matter of coming home and desiring to share it.  Even if you haven’t talked to Him in prayer for a while, He is still waiting because like those in your life who want to hear about your trip, He wants to hear about your life and all that is in it.  The Lord is always there, always listening, and always understanding. (Ps 139:7-12 , Heb 4:15-16 )  So, like coming home, go to the Lord in prayer, tell Him what has been happening, what you have been experiencing.  Celebrate with Him, receive the help strength and shelter you need from Him. (Heb 4:16 , Ps 18:31-33, Ps 91:1-2 )

Have you ever watched a child start a project and asked them what they are making and gotten an answer like "I don’t know yet".  My son does that, he will start building something, or doing a craft, with no particular thought in mind as to what it will look like in the end, but he knows it will be something when he gets to the end.  Then he reaches that point and he will proclaim something to the effect of "Look it’s a cat!" and I will be fascinated that he spent an hour building it and got there not knowing that is where he was going when he started.

As adults we don’t operate that way.  We would never start a project without knowing what we intended it to look like when we were done.  Artists are the only ones who operate with a different mindset sometimes, and even they usually have some idea of what the end result should be like.  God has an end result in mind for us, a very specific end result in mind.  2 Corinthians 3:18 says "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."  We are being transformed, changed into His likeness, that is what God’s end result is for us, we just don’t know exactly what that looks like.  As adults we don’t operate that way, so we will say "wait, hold on, I don’t understand!"  When we can’t see how what is happening fits into the end result of what God is doing it is not because God is hiding it from us, it is because we are not always looking to what He tells us our future is.  We often concentrate on the moment, rather then His promise, that we "are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory".

What better end result!  To be like Him!  If what we are experiencing or being asked to do is going to transform us into His likeness then even when we do not understand it should matter not, because we know He is faithful to His promises.  Unlike the child who starts the project and and doesn’t know the end result, God knows the end result He is taking you to and He is faithful to fulfill the promise and complete the task.  He asks that we place ourselves on His Anvil and allow Him to transform us because we trust Him.

Boxes are good for everything from cereal and crackers, to tissues and televisions.  They come in all kinds of sizes to fit just about anything you might want to send or store.  People ship the strangest things sometimes.  Go online and you can get anything you want shipped to you, and it will most likely arrive in a box.  My guess is you have more than one thing in your house that is contained in a box right now.

As people we are so use to everything fitting into boxes, having a certain size and shape.  This is a great principle when it comes to shipping something, but gets us into trouble when we start applying that principle to God’s kingdom.  Why?  God doesn’t work in boxes!  He doesn’t ship things in neat packages, He doesn’t have them show up on our doorstep or in our mailbox.  His plans don’t fit the constraints of a 6 sided cube like shape we have designed.  No box can contain God.  (1 Kings 8:27 )

Then we look at God’s creation.  Have you ever seen a box in the shape of Gods image? No?  Why not?  We don’t fit into boxes either!  We were created in God’s image and that most certainly does not fit into a box. (Gen 1:27 )  Realizing this makes living the christian life much easier.  These boxes can be anything from simple things like fashion, to issues like what your gifts "should" be.  They are all boxes that man has decided make you "look like a christian".   When we stop trying to put ourselves into a man made box labeled "christian", or a box someone has labeled for us, we break down artificial man made barriers.  These barriers prevent us from allowing God to do what He wants to do in our lives.  We need to be people that let God mold us into who He desires us to be, not allowing people to force us into the shape of a box they erect for us.

Once these boxes have been put around you it can become difficult to determine what is a box and what is God molding you.  There is only one way to figure this out, and that is by going to the one who wants to mold you into His image, the one we should want to be like, Christ.  If our desire is to be like Him, we should be asking Him to help us get out of those boxes that have been falsely put around us, and look to Him for who we are to be.  By doing that we will become more Christ like, but not through man made boxes.  There is no box that is just right for us, because the image of God doesn’t fit in a box.  Where we fit best is in the hand of God, where He can mold us the way he desires.  "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." (1 Pet 5:6 )  In order for us to truly be in the hand of God we must humble ourselves, ask Him to take us out of the boxes, and trust Him because we know His plan is best. (Jer 29:11 )

When God tells us "no" or "not yet-wait" we have to remember with faith that He intends everything for our good. (Jer 29:11 )  But what about when He asks us to do something we don’t understand, to give up something we don’t want to, or to move in a direction we don’t think we are ready for?  Have you ever told God "NO not that!"?  I would be surprised if you haven’t because I know I certainly have.  When we are walking with the Lord allowing Him to mold us we sometimes discover, even in trial, that there are things that the Lord asks of us that we really don’t want to do.  Much like when a child hears their mother or father say "go clean your room" or "its time to move on", we don’t want to go the direction the Lord is sending us because we are either comfortable where we are, or we are already dealing with enough change in our life to change anything else.

Like the child who doesn’t want to clean their room because they don’t see a problem with it, when we don’t want to change something because we are comfortable with the way it is, we fail to see the wisdom in what we are being asked to do.  If a child’s room is a mess, then they are going to step on something, lose something, or fail to learn how to keep other areas of their life in order.  When the Lord is asking us to change something, we need to recognize that in His wisdom He knows it needs changing. (Job 12:13 )   Also, if something does not fit with the kind of person the Lord intends us to be, He is going to remove it.  It may be that the thing He is trying to remove is something you keep "stepping" on.  Ask yourself if what God is asking you to give up keeps getting in the way of what you ought to be doing, and if it is then that is why He is asking you to give it up.  Like the child stepping on things, removing the obstacle is the wise thing to do.  Saying "no" is only going to prolong your ability to do what you ought to be doing, keeping another area of your life out of order.

If you say it isn’t an issue of comfort, but an issue of being overwhelmed with to much change already, it really is, at its core, still an issue of comfort.  When things in life are in turmoil, when something has rocked our life, we will grab onto what is familiar in an attempt to steady our feet.  We do this so that we can feel like not everything is spinning out of control, not everything has changed, and something is right.  Then we are asked by God to change something and we say "NO I can’t right now!" because we think enough has changed already, it can wait.  Like the parent who says to a child "its time to move on", God is letting you know it is OK to hold onto something different rather then that familiar thing that He is telling us is not like Him.  In trial God is going to mold us, we need to be willing to allow Him to do so.  When He asks us to give up something, it is because it is not like Him, not because He doesn’t want us to have something steady in our lives.  If you feel like you need that steady place to stand so you can’t give up what God is asking you to give up, know you can stand strong in Him. (Ps 61:3 , Pr 18:10 )  Even in trial God is going to ask us to move on, to keeping changing, to continue to be willing to stay on His Anvil in the molding process.

Is there anything in your life that you have said to God "NO not that!" about?  Ask yourself "why?".  Is it because you are comfortable with the way things are?  Is it because you think you need it to steady your life?  Is it becuase you don’t think in trial you can do it and still stand strong?  Is it getting in the way of what you ought to be doing?  Ask the Lord to give you the faith to remember that He knows what He is doing, and the courage and strength to say yes.

"I messed up again!"  How many times have you uttered those words?  If those words have crossed your lips or your mind, I am sure if you are like me, it has happened more times then you care to think about.  There are those times we say "stop even thinking about it" or "your attitude is going to get you in trouble" or "if you don’t get yourself out of this situation you are going to regret it later".  None of us are capable of keeping ourselves free of wrongdoing on our own.  Unfortunately we all know that.  Sometimes we hate to admit it, but we realize that we can’t cleanse ourselves after we mess up.

We know God cannot stand the sight of sin.  In the moment Christ died on the cross He became sin for us, separated from God because God could not stand to be a part of sin. (Mk 15:34 , Matt 27:46 )   So then what confidence do we have that He is going to forgive us once again when we mess up?  Mercy.  Hebrews 4:15-16 says "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Heb 4:15-16 NIV )  If we are confident in God’s promises, and willing to remain on His Anvil, then we know He is going to fulfill His promise to give us mercy and grace when we mess up.

When God molds us part of the process is removing things He doesn’t like looking at in our lives.  If we believe that, then we need to go to Him and say "I messed up again!"  when we do. Why?  Because like us, He understands what being tempted is, but unlike us, He is without sin.  He is capable of helping us in our time of need, removing from us that burden, and giving us the mercy we seek.  Then, once we receive that mercy, we need to ask Him to keep molding us into the person He desires for us to be, remembering that we need Him to accomplish that task in our lives.  Mercy is often followed by a lesson.  It is in the lesson that we learn how to be the person God desires us to be.  Once we have gone to the Lord and cried out "I messed up again" and received His mercy, we need to be people listening for the lesson by ensuring we are in prayer.

If this is the first time you have ever gone to God and said "I messed up", or if you are thinking about it, you can read about the first time I did the very same thing at Reaching Home Plate Safe .

Doesn’t it seem our life is full of questions we don’t get answers for?  Questions for which we get answers we don’t like?  It sometimes seems like we get more answers we don’t like then answers we do.  We ask and ask and ask but the answer never changes.  My 8 year old will ask for something, get a no, and ask again.  Even after we tell him "the answer is not going to change" he still sometimes asks again.  Then there are the times we tell him "wait not now".  He hasn’t yet learned the patience to just wait, so he wants to know exactly when, or he asks "is it later yet?" to try and speed things along.  Though this is highly bothersome when the question has to deal with an 8 year old getting something, or when we are leaving to go somewhere, the only real consequence it might have is the one his parents are going to give him for not stopping.

When it comes to more serious issues, or bigger questions in life, not being willing to live with the answer God has given us can lead to more serious consequences.  When we have been given an answer from God that we are not particularly fond of we have a choice to make.  We can behave like a child who asks again and again in hopes of changing an answer that won’t change, or understand that God knows what He is doing.  Jeremiah 29:11 says "’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’" (Jer 29:11 NIV )  If God knows the plan, and that plan is designed to prosper us, then we should trust that plan.  Any answer He gives us is going to be in line with the plan He has.  It may not be one we understand, but it is one we can know is for our benefit.  The Lord is not going to harm us, so His decision is certainly not going to do so either.

Another answer we get is to wait.  Wait, not yet.  Should we be like the child who constantly asks and never has patience while waiting?  Does the Lord need reminding that He said "wait, not now"?  To say it sounds ridiculous, that the Lord needs reminding, but we sometimes act like we think its true.  Like the child who says to his parents "is it later yet?", we feel we need to tell God "I’ve been waiting long enough–get to it already".  Maybe not in those words, but in that attitude.  Yet it is better that we wait quietly, seeking Him, knowing the Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him.  Lamentations 3:25-26:

"The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD."   (Lam 3:25-26 NIV )

If there is an answer you have gotten from the Lord that you don’t like, remember, He has plans to prosper you.  He is not going to harm you.  If the answer was no, remember that even if you don’t understand the plan, it is a plan that is meant for your good.  If it was a "wait", seek the Lord in the waiting.  It is in the seeking that we discover how we need to be molded so that He can change the "wait not yet" to a "yes".  When we allow God to continue to mold us despite the fact that we get answers we don’t like, we show Him that we trust Him, and that we have faith in His promises.

Everything changes right?  Isn’t that what everyone says, bands sing about, and books get written about?   There are at least 6 artists who have named a song or album "Everything Changes".   Do a book search on Amazon.com for "Everything Changes" and you get over 10,000 results for books!  I think people generally agree that things change.  It is a constant theme and people talk about it on a constant basis.  When was that last time you got together with a group of people and didn’t hear someone ask "whats new?"  We ask because we know things change.

So why then with God does it surprise us when He wants us to change?  We know that we are changing from our former selfs to our new selfs (Eph 4:22-24 ).  This is a time consuming process, not like changing our clothes or getting a haircut to change our appearance.  He is going to mold us for our entire lives, that is quite a long time.  We know He is going to keep molding us and He gave us a helper to remind us of what He said.  John 14:26 says "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26 NIV )   Part of the Holy Spirits very purpose is to abide in us, teach us, and guide us. (John 14:16 , John 14:26 , John 16:13 )

The Holy Spirit was given to us to help us see what in our life needs to change.  The Holy Spirit allows us to distinguish our old self from the new self, that which God wants to mold out of us so that we can be molded into what He wants us to be.  This is not always a very comfortable process.  We don’t always want to be molded.  There are sometimes parts of our lives that we would rather not have change.  We would rather believe not everything changes, and not everything needs to change!  There is only one issue with that thought, if God wants to change it, it needs to be on His Anvil.  I believe that God knows what is best for His creation (Gen 1:27 ).  We sometimes think God can’t change some part of us, yet He is capable of more then we can imagine because He is God, and He has given us the power of the Holy Spirit  (Eph 3:20 ).  At times we think God doesn’t know about that area–yet we fool ourselves (Heb 4:13 ).  We may believe that God is not big enough for some issue in our life.  God is big enough, bigger then we can fathom, for He is infinite (1 Kings 8:27 ).

Is there something in your life that you know is like your old self self and not your new self?  Is there something you know God wants to change but you are not letting Him?  Is it for one of these reasons, or some other reason you have come up with?  Well God is big enough, He does know whats best, and He is capable of changing us into our new selfs just as He promises.  Fool yourself no longer into thinking it doesn’t need to change.  As the Holy Spirit guides us through the process of molding we need to be listening.  I challenge you to drag whatever the Holy Spirit has made you aware needs changing unto Gods Anvil for Him to mold.  In prayer we can go to God and ask Him to change us, and He is faithful to do so.  After all, change is something we are in a constant process of with God, the process of constantly changing to be more like Him (Eph4:23-24 ).

My son just got some silly putty, that moldable putty that you can transfer a picture onto, stretch out to make the picture look different, and then squish it all up again to transfer a new picture on it again.  This kind even glows in the dark!  He is fascinated by it.  Moldable putty that can be changed on the surface, with a different picture at any given moment.  That picture will remain there and can be stretched and changed, but it still remains until it is squished up.  Then underneath it is still the same old silly putty.  Silly putty was designed to be this way, always the same putty no matter how you change its surface appearance.

Unfortunately this sometimes happens with people to.  Same person on the inside no matter how you change the appearance on the outside.  Silly putty can’t change its insides no matter how many pictures you put on its surface.  The reality is people can not truly change just by putting a new picture on the outside either.  There is a danger in not allowing God to change us beyond the surface.  Ephesians 4:22-24 says "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Eph 4:22-24 NIV )  When we don’t allow God to mold us, we are not going to be able to put on this new self.  It is impossible to do that without Him, since it is He we are being changed to be more like.

When we are in danger of not allowing ourselves to be molded by God, it may be because there is something we don’t want God to mold.  It may be because we think we can handle things just the way they are.  Well look at that silly putty again.  What happens to it after the surface is changed and stretched, but it eventually gets squished?  It is the same old silly putty underneath.  That is the danger in not being molded on the inside.  When we don’t allow God to mold us, and something comes along that squishes us so to speak, we become corrupted again by our old self and our deceitful desires, and we don’t act like our new self.  We all do it.  We all have moments where our old self shines through-like that glow in the dark silly putty.  What we need to do is be sure that when that small part starts to glow we allow God to mold into something new, not just cover it up with something so it doesn’t show for a little whole longer.  Eventually it will show again, and then what.

When we are going through trail one of the unfortunate things that happens is many of those old self moments glow through because we are being squished.  We may react like our old self.  Our emotional reaction may reflect our old self.  We might revert to an old behavior we thought we defeated.  It matters not what that old self part is that is glowing through, it only matters that we don’t just cover it up, and that we allow God once again to mold us, to change us, and to teach us we are no longer that person.  It certainly doesn’t hurt to be reminded that we are a new creation because we are in Christ. (2 Cor 5:17 )

When we have kids one of our goals is to raise good independent children who can take care of themselves and thrive as adults.  We do everything we can to provide them with what they need when they are children, but we also teach them the necessary skills to eventually provide all of that for themselves.  We hope one day they will get a job, move out, and support themselves.  This theory works wonders with children.  This theory does not work so well when applied to our relationship with God.  God does not run on the theory of "I hope to teach my children everything they need to know to make them independent of me someday!".  Unfortunately we like to think sometimes we are independent of God.

There is a huge problem with this theory, and that is this.  Independence doesn’t get us very far with God! God is not waiting for us to say "I know it all now-I can do it without you".  Opposite completely from this He is waiting for us to rely on Him in our entirety, for us to depend on Him completely despite our need, despite what may think we need, He desires for us to depend completely and wholly on Him to provide us what He knows we need.  Matthew 6:8 says in part "your Father knows what you need before you ask him."  That is a powerful statement.  God already knows our need!  So why should we not ask Him to give us what we need when we know He already knows what that something is?  If He knows what it is why would we want to go around searching for something we might not find?  Here is the other part of that, we know if we ask He will give us what we ask for!  In John 14:13-14 Christ tells us that in his very own words.  So if we know God knows what we need, He will give it to us if we ask, then we ought to be asking Him to give it to us!

Even more powerfully then this, our independence fails to recognize the proper place of God in our lives.  When we decide that we are in charge of what is happening, that we are going to walk our own way and tell God see you later, we are forgetting an important key.  Romans 11:36 says "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen." (Rom 8:36 NIV )  If we look at this we see that from Him, God, all things have come.  He is the source of all things.  All things are possible through Him, He is the means by which things continue.  The glory goes to God for all things.  We can not be independent from that which is our source and sustainer!

The other problem with independence is it fails to properly recognize God as the source and sustainer of our very being.  When we do that it makes it very difficult to go to God for what we actually need as opposed to looking for what we think we need, or trying to solve our problem on our own.  When we are in the midst of trial, we need to stop telling ourselves and God "I can do it on my own" and say "God I know you know what I need, please give that to me."  When we set aside our false sense of independence and recognize God as our source and sustainer the Anvil becomes much easier to lay on.  The path becomes easier to see because we began asking God for what we need rather then seeking something we may not find on our own.  So remember Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."  and start asking God for what you need, that which He already knows.