“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress..” (Psalm 4:1)
While I was learning that God is there, real and personal I met with one of my mentors after experiencing the divine presence of God in a mighty way. I told Paris Reidhead, “My cup is just running over, Paris!” His response was: “How big is your cup, Dick? It doesn’t take much to run over a thimble. Why don’t you ask God to turn your thimble into a cup, your cup into a bucket, and your bucket into a truckload?”
I did pray that prayer, fervently. At that time I did not know that according to verse above God’s vehicle for that kind of growth is distress. If you want to know what distress is, just drop the first two letters: God uses stress to grow us spiritually, just as putting stress on our muscles grows us physically.
Over the next few years I found myself going through deep waters and fiery trials. When we had three toddlers and two in diapers my wife was hospitalized four times in one year in a hospital 100 miles away from our home. During that crisis, as I juggled pastoring a church and mothering our five children the Lord enlarged me, big time!
Years later I lost my health and became a bed fast quadriplegic. That is when I really learned the “Four Spiritual Secrets” which have enabled me to minister beyond anything I could have imagined.
When you want to grow spiritually I dare you to ask God to turn your thimble into a cup, your cup into a bucket, and your bucket into a truckload.
Dick Woodward, 08 March 2013
Editors Note: A reminder, the Four Spiritual Secrets are:
I’m not, but He is.
And I am in Him, and He is in me.
I can’t, but He can.
And I am in Him, and He is in me.
I don’t want to, but He wants to.
And I am in Him, and He is in me.
I didn’t, but He did.
Because I was in Him and He was in me.
4SpiritualSecrets 