Abundant Life - Is our perspective skewed?

We had a good time of fellowship at our chapel on New Year's Eve - food, fun and games, a good movie, and a neat time of testimonies. My wonderful Papa and Mama were in town for a visit and it was great to have them with us at the BBC New Year's party.

Papa shared a bit about their year at the testimony time. It's been a rough year from man's perspective... having to put G'pa and G'ma into a nursing home early in the year, then seeing both of them pass away in October. Papa also shared a portion of John 10.10 - "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly," and brought out the fact that we often misunderstand what Christ meant by abundant life. He didn't say He wants us to be happy, rich, or trouble-free. The path of our lives might be rough indeed. His desire is for us to have life abundantly through Him in the midst of wherever our path might lead as we follow Him.

As Papa shared, I knew the Lord was trying to teach me something, but I wasn't really "getting it."

Yesterday, Humble Amy posted a link to a blog entry by a Jon Bloom (not either of the John Blooms that I know) entitled Trust Promises, Not Providences. He says,

Experiences are very powerful. They often feel more powerful than promises. So it's tempting to interpret prosperity and ease as God’s blessing and tribulation as God’s displeasure. And sometimes they are. But often they are not.

In his discussion of how God wants us to treasure the unseen more than the seen (and often uses trials to adjust our perspective), he gives a couple of quotes from a booklet entitled Honey Out Of the Rock by Puritan Thomas Wilcox. I've printed it out and am eager to read it. The quotes in Bloom's blog are

“Judge not Christ’s love by providences, but by promises.”

and

"Bless God for shaking off false foundations, for any way whereby He keeps the soul awakened and looking after Christ; better sickness and temptations, than security and superficiality."

I'm definitely in a period of life where I believe the Lord is working to adjust my perspective, to set my mind on His things, and to give abundant life to me in a much different way than I have imagined. I'm not sure how coherent this post of mine is, as I am not feeling well at all today, but go read Bloom's blog and be blessed!