The week had been one of adversity for sure. I appreciated that God would give me a dream to reflect on His faithfulness.
The dream take-away: Saltine crackers symbolized Jesus as the Bread of Life, plus we are called the salt of the earth. (John 6:35, Matthew 5:13) The crackers floating on water–Jesus is called the Living Water. He says, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”—John 7:38.
I grabbed my Jesus Calling devotional, written by Sarah Young. The day’s devotion talked about being joyful amid adversity. God was speaking!
Excited that God was speaking, I wanted to go tell my husband. He was in his office with a friend. As I told my experience, his friend said, “God never talks to me like He does to you. I must not have what it takes to hear from God like you do.”
God speaks to each one of us in the language we best comprehend.
One of my friends once told me that she asked God why He didn’t speak to her as He does to me. And God answered her and said, “Joni is more hard-headed and stubborn. I have to do more to get her attention. I don’t need to do that with you.”
Her words are true. “Sin-ugly” seems too often to rear its ugly head in my life. My husband’s friend got to witness this first hand. As I was telling the two of them my vision and the way God was speaking, my husband interrupted me to show his friend some coupons asking if he wanted any of them. And so there it came…the sin-ugly.
Immediately, I reacted in a way that was embarrassing to me, my husband, and his friend. Adversity. Satan has a way of using those that we love the most to push our buttons, doesn’t he? Yet God’s Word says, “The Lord gives the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.”
Why? Why does God give us adversity and affliction?
The rest of Isiah 30:20 tells us…your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”
Adversity and affliction is to teach us the way in which we should walk.