Stones

Are we storing up stumbling blocks or stepping stones?

I have been reading Hosea. Interesting story here. Hosea is a prophet of the Lord. The Lord tells Hosea to take a Harlot for a wife, one that would not be faithful to him. God wants to use Hosea's life as an example to Israel of how they have been like the Harlot to God. (Okay, not the point I am going for) So, as I was thinking about Hosea's life, I began thinking about how I am sure that was not the ideal that Hosea had planned for his life...to take a wife that he would love, but one that would not be faithful to him, one that would go searching for others.

So, then I began thinking about Jacob. Now Jacob had 12 sons. Joseph was the youngest of these twelve and very beloved of Jacob. The 11 older brothers became jealous of Joseph and sold him into slavery. Then returned to their father, with animal blood on Joseph's coat telling Jacob that Joseph had been killed. Not until many years later did Jacob find Joseph alive and in Egypt second to Pharaoh.

Now, these are just two men of faith that I am going to mention, there were many that lived a not so "ideal" life. It dawned on me that these men of faith truly knew what it meant to give your full life for God. To be used ultimately for the Will of God. To set aside their own desires and wishes to fulfill the mighty will of God.

As, I begin to look at these situations, I see men who took these "stones" in their lives and turned them to Stepping Stones, bringing them closer to God...
I think how easy would it have been to take these "stones" and make them stumbling blocks in their lives. That is the key. We have the choice to use the circumstances as a stepping stones or to root them into bitterness and become stumbling blocks.
I think Hosea could have gotten a little bitter that he loved a woman that wouldn't be faithful to him. And as for Jacob, it seems that loosing a son, mourning his loss only to find that your other children SOLD him and he was living the entire time in another country (orphaned) would be enough reason to get a little put out!
BUT these men knew that their lives were but a vapor...They knew their true purpose....

Do we know?


Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. 10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. 11 From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do