“Before God uses his servants in a mighty way, He allows them to suffer in a long, cold, dark winter’s night to build mighty faith in them.” – Dr. Elmer Towns
Today’s post is another spiritual teaching from my mentor, Dr. Elmer Towns. He’s sharing something here that we often preach on ourselves – but has new significance when applied to our lives as pastors. Why does God allow us to suffer what Dr. Towns calls “A Winter’s Night”?
Some lessons are learned only from God and not from men. Some lessons focus on intimacy with God. God wants you to be intimate with Him. When is the last time you wept before God and said, “Oh, God, please. Oh, God, I’m sorry, please, please.”?
When you go through that long, cold, dark winter’s night, your first reaction is to quit, cut bait and run, leave the church, go someplace else. You think, “There must be an easier church where they’ll love me. There must be an easier church where I won’t have to put up with this junk.”
Have you ever thought that sometimes, God puts you in that testing place because He wants you to make better decisions? Sometimes, you have to disassociate yourself from things that are important to you to find something that’s more imperative.
Sometimes, God puts you in a long, dark cold winter’s night to prepare you for His divine special task. It’s during this time of extreme testing where we:
1. Learn our weaknesses or failures.
2. Wrestle with our faulty self-perceptions to learn to see ourselves as God sees us.
3. Are shut up to God’s person and power to solve our dilemma.
4. Are transformed by God Himself to do the task He has for us.
Your testing will also make you yield more of yourself to God. If you give God 10% of yourself, He can only use 10% of your talents. If you give Him 60%, God will use that 60%.
This is just a glimpse at the teaching Dr. Towns shared in a four-hour private talk with my Advanced Coaching network. Once Dr. Towns finished his talk, I told him we can’t limit this to just these pastors. And he agreed! I invite you to pick up this new resource, The Spiritual Life of a Pastor. Click here to save 79% thru Tuesday, August 5th only!
Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
P.S. After Tuesday, August 5th, this BRAND NEW resource The Spiritual Life of a Pastor from Dr. Elmer Towns will be listed in the store for $299.95. But today you can save over 79%: You will get these fundamental principles to improve your own walk with Christ – plus over $179.00 in bonus resources – for just $99.00!
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