I'd like to share on a subject I'm calling "Divine unfolding" in my blog this warm North Carolina evening of spring.

The calling God places on our lives is sacred. It is divine. It is special. At the same time we are ordinary people living in an ordinary world, therefore inevitably bound to ordinary and common experiences. The calling of God on our lives may be special, even uncommon, but it unfolds through common every day experiences. 

The Bible says of those of us who have come to Christ Jesus and believed His word, we are in the world, but we are not of world. (John 17:14)

If I'm honest, I used to think early in my born again Christian faith that following Jesus wholeheartedly, and living your life in obedience and sacrifice was a shield from the world. That it was a shield from some if not most of life's pain and hardship. 

Truth is, a life of obedience and sacrifice does not exempt us from the human experience. What it guarantees is that we will see the hand of God in the midst of it. Not to make this seeing the hand of God thing seem that straightforward and obvious because a lot of the time it is not. We will not always feel or see the hand of God on our lives.

In fact, Sometimes it is going to feel as if God is no longer involved in our story. It will feel as if He is not interested at all and we are on our own. Sometimes instead of His good promises and blessings that we expect to come with obedience, we will experience pain and hardship and many things that are inscrutably difficult. 

If we keep our eyes on Jesus through it all, will always see in hindsight that God works in all things for the good of those who love Him. If I'm honest there are a lot of things I have been through following Jesus that I don't like at all. Many things have felt cruel and unfair. Do I still love Jesus the same? I absolutely love Jesus more than ever. There's nothing better in this world for me, but the realities remain. 

Many people in America today ask, why would a loving God allow this or that? The answer is, we were born in a fallen world which was no fault of God. The fall was our original parent's fault which gave the thief a.k.a Satan authority to unleash his agenda which is meant to steal, kill and destroy the beautiful purposes of God for mankind. God has provided a solution for us in Christ. While some may want God to remove the externalities, and so question God because they remain, God sent Jesus to deal with the internal. To save people from sin. Christ came to correct the world from the inside out. Inside correction is meant to correct the outside if we allow Christ to rule our lives through and through. At the same time, God uses the hardships, the uncertainties of this world for our good. 

When God called us, He said there would be a cross to carry. The cross was not funny. It was not interesting and did not one bit feel like a blessing. The Bible says cursed is any man who hangs on a tree. (Deuteronomy 21:23)

Jesus took our curse upon Him when He hang on a cross. He then went on and said if we really and truly wanted to be His disciples, we would have to carry a cross of our own in the divine call of God and it's unfolding on our lives. 

In otherwords, and from my personal experience, Jesus was saying divine unfolding would not occur but with some pain. We would not die for sin, as only Christ was chosen and qualified to die for the sin of mankind, but sometimes in the unfolding of His calling on our lives, the pain and hardship would certainly feel like the end of us, like we were dying. And indeed we are dying or ought to be dying to ourselves daily so that we may live to Christ. 

The apostle Paul puts it well;
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20) 

Accepting the call of God on your life is the most exhilarating thing in the world from personal experience. I mean there is nothing bigger or greater to live for in this world. At the same time, the unfolding of God's calling is not going to feel exciting sometimes. It is going to feel downright cruel and unfair sometimes. Yet in the midst of it all, God is working in us, through us, for us, accomplishing for us and through us what only God can do.

Sometimes when life seems cruel, God is setting us apart for divine unfolding. It is as if God has to cut us as well as cut off some contacts and some people in order to build us up into the most incredible people we could ever possibly become in this life for His glory. 

As one St Irenaeus once said;  "The glory of God is man fully alive." A man is never truly fully alive unless he experiences pain and hardship. Divine unfolding is carrying a cross and dying metaphorically speaking, so that you may become fully alive in Christ. 

There is no such thing as a convenient and comfortable Christianity. Christ in the midst of our lives, as Lord of our lives sets us apart in the midst of the discomfort and inconvenience so that even though we are in the world, we do not think, act or function like the world. We think, act and function like children of the Kingdom. This is how we participate in seeing His Kingdom come and His will being done. This is how we change the world.