Curve Balls

"Behold, the hour cometh...that ye shall be scattered." John 16:32

"After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities."
-Oswald Chambers

The disciples had a severe case of "Israel Complex." No matter what they went through, how many miracles they saw, or how close they grew towards Jesus and God, they never seemed to get it right. There was always some element left unsettled, some part of them that was slanted fully towards self. They had no faith when the storm on the sea came, they could not cast out demons, they squabbled amongst themselves for superiority, and Jesus' words constantly disturbed them. Each time they learned their lesson, circumstances revealed a new flaw and they fell out again. Jesus, however, reveals to them an odd encouragement: he knows they will fall again. "Ye shall be scattered." It is inevitable; the circumstances that reveal their flaws are meant to be.
The way God chastises His children is what I call curve balls: a set of unexpected circumstances or unexpected elements in circumstances that hit you right where you were not looking and reveal a weak spot. They always reveal to you areas where you still need work. No matter how far we've come or how well we feel we know or trust, God will always send a curve ball that points out where you are off beat, where the rhythm of your will is not fully in tune with God's, where your faith is, as Chambers put it, "real, but not grounded." Curve balls are God's way of grounding our faith until it is unshakable.
We live only in the ideal (viz., God's blessings); we would much rather stay on the mountain top where God's presence and love are so real that faith almost seems unnecessary. It takes God's curve balls to ground our faith, to knock it off of the glorious heights down to the actualities and hum-drum of real life where faith is truly strengthened. The mountain tops add to your faith; the valleys are where it is strengthened, where God's hammer of affliction and mediocrity smashes away all dross and tin.
Curve balls are never a rebuke. Rebukes come when you have willfully submitted yourself to the slavery of death through sin. Curve balls are God's way of growing you up. Circumstances come, and you think you have all the angles worked out: "No matter what happens, Father, I will trust you." Then the one thing you were not counting on, your one blind spot, hits you upside the head, and the immediate reaction is to slide into despair: "Missed it again!" Never slide into despair. God's curve balls are not rebukes, they are the fires that harden the steel of your faith. Faith is never grounded, established, made unshakable unless it is confronted with a real crisis, and the crisis will always be something you did not intended or plan for. Thank God for the curve balls: they are signs of His presence and workings in your life.
"Spiritual grit is what we need," said Chambers, and it is true. The curve ball comes and we fall apart, thinking that we have "failed." There are no failures or successes in curve balls; only weathering or wilting. God, like the good Father He is, will make circumstances such that you will either fall away into despair and devilish self-pity; or grit your teeth, hang on, and bank fully on the character of God until your childish faith becomes "child-like," i.e., fully grounded on God and completely unshakable.