Success and Trials

    Success and Trials
-Roy Lessin, Meeting in the Meadow
 
Have you ever noticed that your greatest trials can often appear shortly after your greatest times of success? Why does this happen? God allows this for love’s sake. He allows it to keep your heart from entertaining the one thing that can bring you down quicker than any other sin—pride!

    God wants to bless you, use you, and cause you to prosper. God is a good Father, and for love’s sake, He does not want any of His blessings or favor to puff you up or lead you away from His presence and into self-confidence or self-sufficiency.

The next time you experience a great trial after a great success, keep these four things before you and hide them in your heart:

1.     Without Jesus I can do nothing. 
2.     God is using this trial to show me my weakness and to help me to continue abiding in His strength.
3.     I have more grace working for me than the trial that is working against me.
4.     Anything that exposes my weakness and helps me to be fully dependent upon God is something I can respond to with thankfulness.

    A final reminder…
Put your hand down if you’re trying to pat yourself on the back. Lift it toward heaven instead!
 

    I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NLT).

    #devotional #successandtrials #pride #roylessin #meetinginthemeadow

    ©2025 Roy Lessin, Meeting in the Meadow. Photo by Marina Bromley. Used with permission, all rights reserved.