So yesterday on a prayer call, with an intercession team I am a part of, I heard one of the participants using the words “ persuade” & “ persuading” a couple of times. In hearing the words, I had a flash from a building show I had seen once. It was of a man using a giant mallet to pound a beam into place. I thought it was made of rubber, but upon looking it up, I found that it is made of very hard wood. The mallet was called by the builders “the persuader” . That was the name of the tool. When I tried to describe it to the team, I said it was like a giant sledge hammer, only with a much bigger head, and unlike the sledge hammer ( which is used to demolish or destroy) the persuader is used to build, particularly to pound heavy beams, rafters & joinery into place. Big, heavy & powerful- but because the head is not metal, it does not splinter or destroy the wooden beams it pounds on, but rather pushes or “persuades” them into their right (and tightly fitted) place. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this…. What if all the pain, the pounding, has all been the hand of our master carpenter, not to destroy, but to nudge & fit us into the exact place we are meant to occupy in the marvelous building He is doing? “We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that this immeasurable power will be seen as God’s, not ours. Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out. We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you.” ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭12‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Posted by susanhannah27 at 2024-09-12 23:44:24 UTC