The Letters Series
So, why does God leave difficult people in your life? What purpose could he have in leaving people that seem to be spiritual irritants to you?
David said regarding God, “Your thoughts towards me are as numerous as the sands on the seashore.” Every one of those thoughts has the ability to rewire your brain.
Laying the axe to the root of the tree means our patterns and habits of response dictated by the formation of our brain must change.
My wife and I were great friends before we started dating. We spent a year developing a deep friendship before we became romantically involved. It took all of a week for the openness we had cultivated as friends to be challenged by pre-conditioned responses ingrained from past pain.
Imagine that your brain is like a forest. There is a vast interconnectedness of leaves, branches, and underbrush. You decide one day to carve a path through this forest.
The revelation of his care in the midst of my inability to walk in the way of holiness completely undid me. As I was in this gathering, teaching these students, the revelation of that care hit me.
Dark nights of spiritual struggle are not normal seasons of the spiritual life. There will be seasons of great joy, increasing fruit, successful initiatives, incredible intimacy, watching others frolic and play with God, sweetness before the Lord, and many other incredible moments to celebrate in the grand scheme of life in God.
...the dark night begins to effectively erode pride from your life, and you become more fully aware of your brokenness then you have ever been.
The ongoing cycle of spiritual growth will include periods of dryness, emptiness, and perceived distance from God. They are all designed for your benefit.
Our temporary pain betrays the eternal love of God. He is more concerned about your eternal destiny than he is in your temporal comfort.
When I would ask my father questions about the bible or theology, he would never give me a straight answer. He would maybe give a couple of thoughts, point out a verse or two, and then leave it at that...
Sometimes our pain tells us the degree of separation between our God-breathed destiny and the reality of our actual day to day life.
As those who are united with God are joined together with his Spirit, there is a beautiful harmony in the way life is shared in this metaphor. The vine exists to nourish, feed, and grow the branches, the branches exist to bear the fruit of the vine.
Developing disciplines in your life makes room on a consistent basis for God to speak to you, and for you to respond to his presence.
We fail to realize that the question, “What should I do?” is often unanswerable for this simple reason: if God were to answer it directly we would either run from the answer because of the immensity of the task or fall into pride over the great plan he has for us.
As man is united to God physically, his actions begin to change. There is an observable difference in who he was and who he is becoming.
Man and woman, who are of the same flesh, cleave to one another. God who is Spirit creates man with a spirit, and calls man to also cleave to himself.
You are made in the image of the God who is light. You are to grow in this light, and as you grow you will partake in the very nature of God. This is a mystery.
When your framework, or your total expression, is integrated with the truth of who God created you to be, peace reigns. This is the united heart.

The underlying principle behind God leaving difficult people in your life is this: If a difficult person in your life needed a touch from God, God would never be able to send them to you.