A week straight of ice chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner will get the message across. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness with bread (earthly satisfaction), power, and all the world’s riches. Jesus answered, ‘Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ Matthew 4:4. The ESV notes that while God clearly never tempts anyone to do evil, he will use circumstances to test a person’s character. Also, although the devil will intend to thwart God’s plan and purposes, God is big enough to use his evil intentions for good.
There were moments in the past two weeks that I felt I straight lost my dignity. I cried like a baby for nights in a row for just one shot of morphine. My mom showered me down like I was her grandmother and not her 22 year old daughter. My little brother wiped the sweat off my back as I awoke from fever chills every night- by every hour. But by the words that come from the mouth of God I couldn’t question that I knew… He was working on my character.
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
— 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
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