Adversity is your friend. It is like the trainer in a gym when you are bodybuilding, pushing you beyond what you imagine your limits would be. It demands even more from you, developing your muscles and increasing your strength.

Adversity presses you “beyond measure” (2 Corinthians 1:8). Remember that you are the clay and I Am the Potter. What appears to you to be adversity is being used by My hand to form and shape you into a vessel of honour.

Yield to Me in adversity. Don’t yield to temptation, but let the temptation press you into Me, to be conformed into My image. Imagine pressing a piece of clay onto a penny. When you peel it off, the image of Abraham Lincoln will be on the clay. That is what adversity will do for you. Run to Me in adversity. You will grow stronger and more intimate with Me.

Adversity is also like the tremendous heat and pressure that turns a piece of coal into a diamond.

In the midst of adversity, as you walk in the fear of the Lord and speak of Me with others, your holy reactions are being recorded in the books of Heaven. That is how I make up My jewels, My special treasures who have trusted Me to make them My sons.

“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him” (Malachi 3:16—17).

“Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is mine” (Exodus 19:5).

“For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

“Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God” (Isaiah 62:3).

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).

In Quietness and Confidence by Sharon Buss
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