You know, this course wasn’t on our schedule. We were in the middle of taping a different course ten months ago.
Tuesday at 5:30 in the morning, I was making coffee, getting up, preparing for that day of shooting, standing at the counter. And I fell to the floor. I had what’s called a stroke. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t move. . .
I was in three different hospitals and all three physicians in the different hospitals said, You got this from COVID. When you had COVID earlier it made your blood, you know, different than what it was. You shouldn’t have had this stroke. Had you not had COVID you wouldn’t have had this stroke.
That changed my life forever, unless God decides of His own sovereignty to heal me someday, which He may or may not choose to do. But this changed my life.
And I was laying for weeks in the hospital, I had to deal with the question: Is God good? Is He really good? Is this for my good? Is this something that God gave as a gift to me? Or is God really not good?
What a challenging issue.
And I remember getting to the point in which my heart burst open in the hospital, nobody else around, raising my hand, thanking God for the stroke.
You are good. This is a gift from you to me. I trust you, I believe in you. There are no exceptions to your goodness. Out of my weakness your strength will be made perfect.
Why is that?
That’s because I’ve been initiated to the truth. You can count it all joy when you fall into a terrible trial. Why? You have a terribly wonderful God who’s in charge of everything,
yes.
I don’t have to understand it. I don’t have to like it, but I can have joy in it because I know the result of it.
And as I was recovering somewhat from this, I was praying, Lord, do you want me to go back and teach the course that I prepared? No. I want you to teach the testing of your faith because My people around the world aren’t ready for what’s coming. They aren’t ready for
it. They don’t know, they haven’t bought into the truth that I am behind every trial.
And I’ll prove it to you in lesson number six. It’s going to blow your mind when you get into it. That’s advanced. You’re going to see God in ways you’ve never imagined.
Somehow, we think that God is off in the corner, doing certain things that are religious, but God’s not really involved with all of this.
Wait till you see the truth. You will never be the same after lesson number six.
The initiation can bring peace. Yes.
Is He good? Yes.
Is He always good? Yes, all the time. All the time He is good.
Does Satan ever overpower or trick or surprise God? Not once.
Is this for my good? Yes.
Part of the transcript for lesson 1 of SF209 The Testing of Your Faith by Bruce Wilkinson
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