I'm told you should change the mowing pattern of your lawn regularly. Doing the same pattern too much stresses the lawn, affecting the strength and quality of the grass. Perhaps this is an "old lawn's tale," but I faithfully switch between north/south one week, east/west the next, and diagonals the third and fourth weeks. I never repeat a pattern.
As I was mowing my lawn yesterday afternoon before the rains came, I got to thinking how God handles me like I do my lawn. I have found He rarely ever repeats a test in my life. While I learn through each trial, gaining wisdom that helps in future difficulties, each trial is different. God is mowing a different pattern in my character so that I can grow stronger into the image of Christ.
If God allowed the testing of my heart to happen identically each time, I'm prone to think I'd stop seeking and trusting Him by faith. Instead, I'd probably start relying merely upon the wisdom I have gained, leaning on my own wisdom.
But by allowing different trials into my life, God keeps building, growing, stretching, molding, and mowing me into the image He already sees me to be. Like Michaelangelo merely let the famous image of David come out of the rock by chiseling away the parts that didn't belong, so God is bringing out the image of Christ through the various trials life brings.
This is why James 1:2 tells us to "Consider it pure joy when you encounter trials of various kinds." Being cut by the mower blades hurts, but there is something far greater that awaits, so we can actually have joy in the midst of the blades whirling through our life.
Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)
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