"So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world."
I have been reading D. Martyn Lloyd Jones' book "Spiritual Depression", and today's message focused on these verses.
One of the greatest trials of my fatigue and breakdown has been the loss of hope, the loss of dreams, the loss of confidence in my ability to do something well. Lloyd-Jones points out that God has never used a person without first 'testing' them. And i praise God, for the times I have been through have only pressed me to be more prayerful, more faithful in reading and learning His word. I do not know what is ahead, but God is renewing my hope, my dreams, and my confidence - that in Him I can ...
"So be truly glad..."
