I was talking to someone the other day about God's will. What a hard subject sometimes, isn't it? We don't know God's will before it happens, right?

I've concluded that there's a pretty fine line between:

- Coming to the conclusion that since you're not being successful in something (whatever that may be) then it must not be God's will, in other words God isn't "blessing it" and

- Realizing that God will bring you through trials to teach you something and we have to get through the trial, in other words God "wants us to go through the fire"

It seems to me that so many Christians nowadays pray so hard for no pain, no trials, no lessons- they want everything to be perfect and painless. So when those things come, we ask God, "Why God, why?!". Instant gratification has soaked into the hearts of Christians, mainly in the "modern world West" I believe, and we are not allowing God to teach us lessons when we should be taught.

This is not to say that we should let our stubborn natures soak in too, and not try to get out of bad situations.

I've been talking about general things but this is what I really mean: I've been raising support for at least 6 months and I'm about halfway to where I want to be. I expected a miracle (with my instant gratification needs) and thought I would get the support a lot sooner.

So for some people, they're viewing this as *God is not blessing this, so you should stop*.

Where other people are viewing this as *God is teaching you something and putting you through a trial, and it doesn't mean you should stop*.

I am obviously more prone to the second opinion, but it's hard not to listen to smart people telling me the first one, ya know? Anyway, I think it's an important aspect of our faith that we should pay attention to. At times I get so down about this whole thing and feel like I want to give up- but other times, like yesterday in church, I thought to myself: If there's anything in the world I'd like to be in a trial about, it would be about an eternal Kingdom concern and allowing God to fix my heart about it.

What kinds of trials are you facing?