Your Season Is Not Accidental; Christians Are Being Called On

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

What No One Saw

A few of you know some details about what has been going on in my personal life since September of last year. What no one knows is how bad it’s been. 

This is not an all-about-me story, but I will share some personal details to give context. 

When Everything Went Wrong

In September, I got an NJ feeding tube. If you are not familiar, it is a tube that goes through the nose, down the throat, and feeds nutrition into my small intestine. This was the part of me that the extended car warranty did not cover at birth.

Then, on November 4, I had a permanent feeding tube surgically placed in my stomach. Nothing went as planned. When I say that, I do not mean one or two minor setbacks, or even three, four, five, six, or seven things.

Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong to a level so insane that even providers I am working with are talking about it, and things are still far from resolved.

I have faced challenges in my life before. But this. This was different. 

This was a trauma. This was deep depression. This was severe and constant pain, betrayal, anger, hopelessness, and anxiety. 

To put my mind into perspective, I had to order my medical alert bracelet.

I had DNR engraved on it.

Where My Faith Was Tested

But here’s the thing, even in my hurt and anger, God didn’t love me less.

He waited patiently through my depression until I finally broke and confronted Him, told Him how angry I was, and admitted that I felt abandoned after finally receiving help after years of fighting the medical system, only to have the medical system fail so badly. 

I genuinely lost trust in God; He knew that, yet He didn’t leave me, because I still took it to Him, my Father. 

Now, there is a whole crap ton more that went on between God and me, and at some point in the future, I may share it, but I’m here to talk about a pattern I started to see with other Christians. It finally came full circle and hit me, Holy Ghost goose bumps and all.

Photo by Clark Van Der Beken on Unsplash

This wasn’t just spiritual warfare, although it was the worst I have ever gone through. 

This was something else. 

This was to see where I would go when the world pushed me to the edge. It was a preparation period.

And I see now that I have not been the only one.

So many people I know from all over the country and across the globe, both online and in person, have been going through, or have recently gone through, an exhausting trial.

I sat there, and I counted. The total number left me jaw-dropped for a few minutes in my office. 

Not ten people, not twenty, not thirty, not even forty, but well past that.

That is not a coincidence or an isolated occurrence, people. God is up to something. I’ve never witnessed what I am seeing now. 

Why This Feels Different

I’ve never seen this level of personal and intense spiritual warfare attacking Christians, and in many cases, the severity of these attacks without God intervening sooner.

He let this play out on all of us.

We need to ask ourselves why? 

I’ve always found that satan really loves to go after people he can see drawing closer to God, people he can see God priming and paving a future for. Satan has been fighting on a magnitude I have never encountered before in my life, and that doesn’t happen for no reason.

None of what I have learned from these other Christians since starting to come out of my own trial is a coincidence. I also didn’t learn the full scope of these other trials until I reached a personal turning point with God, and then I was suddenly overwhelmed by story after story.

God, the world, and satan are always testing us.

But this is different; I am also not the only one who has picked up that something is going on, either. I think there are a whole lot more people, since last fall, who have been tested to the brink to see what metal their armour was really made of that we do not know about.

What Comes After the Testing

This is for everyone reading this.

There is a purpose to what we have been going through lately. I promise you that. Even when it felt isolating, even when it felt unbearable, none of it was wasted. Many of us walked through our trials alone, unaware that others were enduring similar.

It is refinement. It is preparation.

To those who kept choosing Him even when everything fell apart, hold on to your knickers, because something is coming. God allowed the testing to reveal what we are truly made of, not just to Him, but also for us to see it in ourselves.

© Jane Isley