BRACE YOURSELF - PART II

A main reason the Lord sometimes reveals particularly severe future trials is so that we'll spiritually brace ourselves for them. This involves taking a particular battle ready stance that expects a massive spiritual and practical hit in order to not be bowled over by it. This guards against the power of emotion to try and wrench us from Christ, even as the disciples allowed such a thing to part them from Him for a while when they fled from the cross. The battle ready stance also involves refusing to let perplexity and pain undermine faith and trust. It is a resolving to walk by faith and not by sight, no matter what the cost, and no matter how random and naturally unexplainable our experiences may be. It dethrones 'reason' to throw itself on the character, all-sufficiency and all-knowingness of Christ. 

Bracing for what's coming involves EXPECTING trouble, and spiritually leaning into it. This means continuing to be open to the prophetic, the Lord's voice in His Word, and the 'watching' of the signs of the times. Such things are the Lord's way of preparing us emotionally and mentally as well as spiritually. Job was ready in this way for the tragedies that befell him, but his wife was not, and it showed. Job's wife let the emotion of the trial and its torturous pain cut her to the core and take away all her faith in God, to the point where she encouraged Job to give up, die, and curse God. Job, however, expected what came: ' He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" - Job 2:10.

Bracing for the coming storm means praying about it in order to prepare our way spiritually in order to walk through it. This is what the Lord constantly did throughout His life, and particularly so in the garden of Gethsemane. Praying about what's coming also allows the Lord to change our hearts to be able to face it resolutely and head on. This is why the Lord eventually prayed, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done". The Lord showed us throughout His life that we always need to pray, not only for present grace, but also FUTURE grace. Without prayer, we cannot spiritually brace ourselves fully, or in the way God intends.

Bracing for what's coming also means taking the time to decide how much we're willing to give up to continue on with Christ. This is a process that often takes time and considerable thought (honest thought which challenges our own hearts/expectations/desires etc.), which we won't necessarily have much or any of when all the future trials of the storm hit. The Lord reveals the future so that we'll be able to measure just how costly our crosses are, and what it will take to continue to carry them when things get harder and more costly:

Luke 14:
27And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

28“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

Bracing is also a mental process that accepts that life will not always be rosy and will not necessarily follow our expectations or hopes. Bracing refuses to except that this present life is all there is, and that there are purposes far greater than our own which only God knows and is working in our lives and throughout the earth. Bracing even surrenders our own spiritual views if necessary, and owns that we only see and know in part. Bracing also humbles itself to submit to the will of the Lord, though we may not understand or agree with it in the natural, and owns that there is an end to all things, and that we cannot take one thing with us when we die (and thus that even loss itself is a temporary thing). Bracing is needed for all storms in life, and it will be particularly needed for the great storm which is ahead.