Squeezed by Circumstances

from: The Quiet Place Daily Devotion Readings by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

So we do not lose heart...For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.  2 Corinthians 4:16-17

I remember talking years ago with a young mother who had a two-year-old child and one-year-old twins, and who said to me with a sigh, "I was never an impatient person -- until I had these twins!"

She believed what most of us have believed at one time or another: the reason why we're the way we are is because someone or something has made us that way.  If our circumstances were different --- our upbringing, our environment, the people around us --- we would be different.  More patient, more loving, more content, easier to live with.

But if our circumstances make us what we are, then we are all victims.  And that's just what the enemy wants us to believe.  Because if we are victims, then we are not responsible; we can't help the way we are.  God says, however, that we are responsible, not for the failures of others but for our own responses and our own lives.

Truth is, our circumstances do not make us what we are; they merely reveal what we are.  They "squeeze" us, forcing what's on the inside to come out.  As I gently shared with that exasperated mother, "The fact is, you actually were an impatient person before having twins.  You just didn't realize how impatient you were, until God brought a set circumstances into your life to show you what you were really like --- so He could change you into someone who looks a whole lot more like Him!"

We've been deceived into thinking we would be happier if we had a different set of circumstances.  But we can trust our wise, loving, sovereign God to work out His plan for our lives by using those very circumstances to show us our need and to make us desperate for His grace. 

What have you been blaming on the people, problems, and uncertainties around you? Ask God how He wants to use your circumstances to show you your heart and to bring you to a place of greater dependence on Him.  


Yup, I needed this one AGAIN!