"i invite YOU in": a HURRICANE vs. a LIGHT RAIN

The everyday pressures I face, when compared to my former pressures, is the difference between a hurricane and a light rain. An umbrella adequately covers one; but there are limited safety precautions for the other.   Prison pressure was a hurricane, making life’s current pressure nothing but a light rain.I was in an earthly form of hell for over 4 and 1/2 years, yet I emerged without smelling like fire because I recognized that Jesus was with me in the fire (Daniel 3:25).  And now that I am out of the furnace, how could I see this side of living as something to be considered more ferocious? I refuse, for Jesus is still with me!And I refuse because what I’ve been through is what has enabled me to be where I am today.  For instance, in prison, fights would break out less than 3 yards from where I would be studying my Bible in the early AM. Weapons like razors and “locks in socks” would be used to decide who was the victor, where blood splatters were the spoil.  Especially disconcerting was the fact that you never knew if a guard was gonna take his bad day out on you, whether by locking you up for no reason, or literally beating you down with the bottom of his shoe. Yea, I witnessed both of those too! And I don’t want sympathy or empathy for my story, but I will use my past as a platform to give God the present glory.  “Yet not I,” I say and I pray, “but the grace of God which is producing anything fruitful in my life and performing for me as the favor of my life.”You see, I may have constructed the prison that housed me by way of a reckless decision, which made the pressure of the adversity to be considered self-afflicted. But the reckless decision doesn’t define me and that’s why I’m allowing such pressures from behind me to push me forward for God to use the refined me. So YES, I do consider this side of my freedom to be the “weathered” side of God’s kingdom.  I wonder if a sailor who has experienced a hurricane on the waters is as fearful of a downpour that falls upon him while on land? He has seen darkness that smothers you and waves that can cover you.  So with that experience, how can you let any other pressure trouble you?God’s greatest victories come by way of apparent defeat. And just when the enemy thinks the pressure has reduced you to a dime, God uses that same pressure to produce a diamond.  Let’s see if the Bible will back me:“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:6-7).#iCONVICTION