When a storm hits our life as a Christian one of the first places we find ourselves is on our knees crying out to God. Most of the time we run to Him and desire to stay in His presence until the storm passes. However, God does not want to just be our "storm shelter". A trial or a storm can be one of the best places to develop new and good spiritual habits. We will go to Him in prayer throughout the day, stay in His word, bury ourselves in a devotional that deals with the trial we are in and even find a great accountability partner to talk to. Problem is, once God brings us to the other side of our storm we tend to let some of these things fall the wayside. I can't help but think that sometimes God wishes He could take us back into the storm because we were closer to Him there. I believe the key to a great relationship with Jesus is to NOT let your new spiritual habits stop just because the storm did. Whatever time you carved out in your life for God during the storm....keep it!!! And then continue to build on it. Pray, fast, stay in the word, find new devotions....and keep people in your life that will speak truth to you. Oh yeah, and give them the freedom to do so. Sometimes we let our close Christian friends speak truth to us in the midst of the storm, then once we feel like the healing has begun we act like we don't need to hear that "truth" from them anymore. NOT TRUE! Allow loving and caring people to help hold your feet on the path. It is one of the ways you will become...and stay...healthy in your walk with Christ. Remember, He brought you through it for a reason and one of those reasons may be to get you on a new level with Him. Don't slip back into the comforts of life because the water in your ocean has become calm. The enemy would love nothing more than to let you think you can get comfortable again so he can kick your feet out from under you when you least expect it. Stay close to God and you will remain "armed" for whatever the enemy has planned for you next. And you can guarantee he has something else planned for you. But just think how much easier the next thing will be to get through if you already have some great spiritual habits in place at the beginning of the storm.
Romans 12:2 says "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect". Well a storm is the perfect place to be transformed because God will renew your mind....they key is keeping it that way so you can continue to walk in God's perfect will AFTER the storm.
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