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 Thanks to Humble Follower on the MLR Forum for her question, which inspired this blog. You can see the post @ Tough Questions For The Webmaster. Enjoy!

 In the midst of our recent tests my wife and i needed to read Job.  Before, we thought the test was too much for us, and we couldn’t stand.  Then we read Job, and realized, we were in a cake walk compared to him.  If you read the first several chapters where it explains what happened, then the last, where it tells you how God redeemed Job your test will be easier.

Here’s what happened.  Job had everything: money, livestock, houses, servants, children, wife; and he had it all in a big way, we’re talking thousands with the acception of kids and wife, extremely prosperous man.  Then the test came, and they were all killed.  Then his body was attacked with boils and sores.  Then all his friends turned their backs on him and accused him of having committed a sin that brought this on.  He had nothing left.  But because he passed the test in the end he got everything back with an increase of 7 fold in some areas and 2 fold in others. 

Relative to Job is your test really so bad that you cannot stand if he could? 

The Word in James 1:2 says “Brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.” 

Perfect and complete, lacking nothing; so if tests make us perfect and complete, lacking nothing then that means tests aren’t just to see if we will stand; test must be to change us so that God can give us more.  My pastor prays over us each week at the end of the service and one thing he asks is that we all prosper in five ways, Socially(more friends), Materially(more money, to give away), Physically(stronger bodies), Mentally(stronger minds), Spiritually(closeness to God, faith, annointing).  The first four have to do with our lives being more abundant and are the things we would expect to receive after a test.  But Spiritual prosperity is what is really on the heart of God and is what really matters.  Spiritual prosperity consists of things that win souls and build up the body, the 9 fruit of the Spirit(love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness(humility), and self control) and the 9 gifts of the Spirit(Prophecy, Tongues, Interpretation of Tongues, Word of Wisdom, Word of Knowledge, Discerning of spirits, Gift of Healing, Gift of Miracles, and Gift of Faith)  These things allow the power of God to be displayed, they build our faith, as well as, the faith of others.  These are what we should greatly desire. 

Honestly, if i was given the opportunity to walk in those gifts in an annointing similar to Elijah’s, and all i would have to do is go through the hardest tests of my life comparable to those of Job or worse even.  i would immediately dive head first into the tests. 

To me there is nothing more rewarding than seeing lives changed.  And tests do just that, they change my life in order that i might lead others to a place where God can change their’s also.

Also, let’s not forget the ultimate test.  The Cross.  The Word says Jesus despised the Cross and what it did to Him, but He endured it, looking foward to the joy set before Him.  That joy set before Him consisted of three things, being reunited with us by undoing the work of death, being reunited with the Father, and then reuniting us with the Father.  By the way, i believe that because of His self-sacrificing and loving spirit what gave Him the most joy of those three was the third in which He gave everything to get nothing, reuniting us with the Father.  He had to die an agonizing death and spend 3 days in hell itself in order that we would be reunited with the Father. 

It never ceases to amaze me the love He held in His heart for us.  He was the only man that had ever walked the earth or ever will walk the earth, that loved only God and hated only sin; this was everything to Him.  Then, He put it all aside.  He put aside His love for the Father by choosing to be separated from the Father while He was in hell.  He put aside His hatred of sin by receiving every bit of the world’s sin upon Himself.  He lost everything and gained nothing, except for the sheer joy that comes from seeing the most important ones in His life, us and the Father, reunited and both happy once more.  What amazing sacrifice, i am humbled.

i think i can safely say nothing improves without tests.  We wouldn’t even be saved if it weren’t for Jesus’s test. Accept it and look to the joy set before you whatever that may be.

Men of Grace, it is an honor to write to you from
Mahmudiyah, Iraq.  I am serving with the 10th Mountain Division here in the
suburbs southern Iraq.  Darren asked me to write to you about what God has
shown me this year.

  If I wrote about everything God has shown me this year,
this might be a long message.  Instead, I’ll write about what God has shown me
this week, which might still be a rather lengthy dissertation.  Perhaps
referring to what God has “shown” me is a use of the wrong tense.
“Showing” might be a more accurate choice of words. But actually, I
feel like I am resisting the thing He is showing me right now.

    Before I elaborate, I should provide a bit of
background for the thoughts I want to share. This week, I was reading in
Matthew where Jesus says that we should love our enemies and pray for those who
persecute us. In any other time of my life, that would’ve seemed like a good
idea, and an idea not altogether difficult to carry out into action.

    But that was before I had any actual enemies. That
was before I lived in a place where people would gladly kill me. That was
before I soaked my uniform in another man’s blood or attended the funeral
of a fellow soldier who will never make it home.

    That these are our enemies, I have no doubt. But the
people I have the hardest time loving are those who spend their time and energy
plotting to kill not me, but each other.

    On Easter, some who I consider my enemies, detonated
a large bomb outside of the local hospital. Though there were no American
injuries, 15 Iraqis were killed, including some of their doctors as well as
patients.  Many more people were injured.  Of these, 17 came to our aid station
seeking care for significant injuries. 

    One of those patients was a 9-year-old girl with a
huge hole in her leg as well as an arterial bleed.  She was screaming in a
combination of pain and absolute terror. We could do nothing to comfort her
because we could not speak her language. We could neither answer the questions
of her parents, nor provide any explanation as we whisked her off in a
helicopter for further care. All we could do was work to get her stabilized
while listening to her scream. I will never forget that sound.

    Another of our patients that day might lose his leg. 
His son was killed in the blast, though he did not know it yet.

   There were others, but you get the idea. I don’t
relate these stories to impress you, but rather to help you understand these
enemies of mine.

    Surely, Jesus didn’t mean that I should actually love
people like them.

  When I think about those we politely call
“insurgents,” my reaction is akin to that of Conan the Barbarian
who found fulfillment in one thing: “to crush your enemies, to see them
driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” 

  But Jesus says to love them. I don’t know how.

    It seems that it would be a big victory for me if I
could just stop hating these people who bombed a hospital and who, twice this
week, bombed an outdoor marketplace.  I have prayed about this often over the
course of the last seven days.

    Did Jesus really mean that we should love these men
who are, seemingly, the embodiment of pure evil?  I want to think not. 

    But then I am reminded of my savior on a cross asking
“Father forgive them.”  I know that I don’t have a high priest who
can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in
all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

    Jesus knew what it was like to have enemies and he
was, no doubt, tempted to hate them.  But He was without sin.

    Ultimately, I know that my nature will not allow me
to love these people apart from Christ. In my heart, I know that they don’t
deserve my love or Christ’s.  However, I know that God loves me, and I
definitely don’t deserve it either. 

    I haven’t learned how to love these insurgents who
are trying to kill me, my comrades, and their own countrymen.  Truthfully, I am
not sure that I will ever learn to do this.  Deep down, I don’t know that
I even want to.  

  But there is one thing this experience has done for me:
I have a much deeper respect, admiration, and appreciation for what Christ did
for us on the cross. He loved me, and millions more like me who go against His
commandments every day. We are not worthy of His love, much less his
sacrifice.  

  So I am trying to learn to love Christ, and praying
that He will enable me to love someday like He does.

  I will close this message like I close much of my
correspondence from Iraq.  As a Soldier, it is not my job to critique our
policies in Iraq.  I wish that decisions could be made by Soldiers, Sailors,
and Airmen instead of Democrats and Republicans.

  However, this I do know: our soldiers are doing some
incredible things in this country across the world from you. There are many
amazing people here who put themselves in danger every single day to try to
bring freedom to this land. In return, we ask only for your prayers. Prayers
for our safety, prayers for our morale, prayers for those who do not yet know
Jesus, and prayers for people like me to learn to love those who seem so
unlovable… unlovable just like you and me.

 Scott Carow, Soldier in Iraq, Soldier for Christ