“But we all, seeing the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.”

— 2 Corinthians 3:18

One thing about the leading of God’s Spirit to grasp is that it isn’t always easy or comfortable. What Paul experienced was running into one wall after another, one obstacle after another as God led him, so he could later say, “For the love of Christ constrains us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

I know that certainly in my life it hasn’t been a matter of being carried on a wave of happy circumstances, but it has been confronting one obstacle after another in an effort to transcend the limitations which circumstances seem to place on my life, because I have had the deep conviction that God has been leading me all along.

You remember the two caterpillars that were crawling in the muck and the mud, talking about whatever caterpillars talk to each other about in the muck and the mud. All of a sudden a large gorgeous butterfly came flitting down out of the sky right over their heads and went on up and up and up and disappeared altogether. And one of the caterpillars turned to the other one and said, “Boy, you’d never get me up in one of those things.” And what do you know, a short time later he is one!

And so it is with the Christian life. What looks so threatening from below is glorious when you experience it through obedience. He created us that we may come to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ.

Dear Heavenly Father, I do want to soar and to be right in the center of Your will. Increase my trust in You, for I often wonder how much Your best is going to hurt. Free me from my earth-boundedness.

IN GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
LIVE FROM GLORY TO GLORY.