I believe Jesus cares so much for us to try to protect us and guide us even when we don\u2019t realize He is doing this! \u00a0I have seen this happen with people whom God is calling before those people have actually even made a decision to believe and trust in Him. It has happened to me!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what one of my favorite Bible characters, Paul, says about this subject in Ephesians 3: 14-20,\u00a0\u201cMy response (Paul\u2019s response to trouble or trials) is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you (he was talking about the Ephesians here) by his Spirit\u2014not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength<\/strong>\u2014that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you\u2019ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ\u2019s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything; you know\u2014far more than you could ever imagine<\/strong> or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.\u201d <\/strong> AND, Romans 5:1-5 has some great things to say. (This was also written by Paul but this time to the Roman people) \u201cBy entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us\u2014set us right with him, make us fit for him\u2014we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that\u2019s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us.<\/strong> We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand\u2014out in the wide open spaces of God\u2019s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.\u00a0There\u2019s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we\u2019re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how suffering produces perseverance;<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>perseverance, character; and character, hope<\/strong>. In alert expectancy such as this, we\u2019re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary\u2014we can\u2019t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!\u201d (this is both The Message and NIV combined)<\/p>\n\n I love these verses (I love most of the book of Romans even though it takes me a long time to comprehend everything in it! It\u2019s chock full!) because they remind me that God is present within me. He has given me an unexplainable peace, a strength that is not by my efforts, gentle encouragement, perseverance, character, and hope. \u00a0Because of that, I trust Him. I see how He has prepared me to be in this situation through several experiences leading up to my diagnosis. I\u2019m thankful He went before me, that His spirit dwells within me now, and that He has already gone before me doing far more than I can even imagine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I believe Jesus cares so much for us to try to protect us and guide us even when we don\u2019t realize He is doing this! I have seen this happen with people whom God is calling before those people have actually even made a decision to believe and trust in Him. It has happened to me!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what one of my favorite Bible characters, Paul, says about this subject in Ephesians 3: 14-20, \u201cMy response (Paul\u2019s response to trouble or trials) is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-encouragement"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75Yu9-bf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.louisecincala.com\/lori\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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