When any notable project, plan, or call to action occurs you can expect increased spiritual activity. You can be assured that a test is coming in order to verify your level of commitment. If you are called to operate in faith, your faith will be tested. If you are focused on healing, you will be confronted with a healing need. If you are publishing a book on Our Heavenly Father’s Love, you are guaranteed multiple tests to see if you are willing to live by what you wrote.
The Apostle Paul was at the top of his game as Saul, the Christian persecutor. Once he received the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ the challenges came. It started with temporary blindness. This resulted in a full loss of control. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul summarizes the tests:
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.
23 Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.
24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 in journeys often, inperils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—
28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?
30 If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
32 In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me;
33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.
On May 9th, in the natural I should have been a fatality in a bicycle accident. Instead I was pulled through the air by Divine intervention away from the path of the van which would lead to certain death. Other notable challenges have surfaced as well. Like Paul, I am compelled to the ministry of Love. The progress of publishing the second book “Ascending to Love” was impeded by the tests over the last several weeks. One’s commitment to the revelation given by Our Heavenly Father will always be tested as gold is refined in fire. “Anybody got some hotdog wieners?” There is no sense letting a good fire go to waste!