August 3rd, 2017
Revelations 1:9
"I, John, am your brother and partner in suffering, and in God's Kingdom, and in the patient to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God, and for my testimony about Jesus."

I think that it is curious that he says that he is our partner in suffering even though he died on the island. But yet even still because the bible is an ageless book it still comforts us that he was going through what we go through, if not worse. This verse is talking about how we need to cling to God through the turbulation and not allow our grip to losen in the suffering. For if we are not patient and we are not preaching the word of God we will not make a difference in God's kingdom. We need to allow him to use us so that we may recieve the calling in which he has placed on us. I find that it is often hard to be an empty vessel for God, haven giving up everything we want to hold on to inorder to be used. I often find myself wanting to give up, so that I don't have to keep getting up early in the morning and start running the same race that I started when I was three. It is so hard, some times I get bursts of engery but even still I am exhausted. But even through my exhaustion I smile, I have the joy of the Lord and the patience to know that even though I have leg cramps, exhaustion and an unquenchable thirst that I would be worthy of being exiled like John. To me that is encouraging. It has always been my hope that I would be worthy of dying a martyrs death. To shake and uproot everything going on around me. That I would cause an upset because God was using me to the greatest capacity offered.

Application: Take a half an hour to be in God's presence tonight before bed so that I may be refilled and press on.