Personification
Transformation often happens in the stillness—where no one sees but God.
Devotional Credit: Abide Above
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Today’s reflection from Miles Stanford speaks to the deep difference between passing along information and embodying transformation. We can’t minister life to others from a distance or from a set of facts, even if they are scripturally sound and passionately delivered. True spiritual impact flows not from what we know, but from what Christ has made real in us—often through the painful shaping of trials, the long road of waiting, and the quiet surrender to His process.
God’s intention is not to give us just a message to declare, but to make us the living message. Like Joseph, who declared that God had caused him to be fruitful in the very land of his affliction, we too are made fruitful not by escaping affliction but by letting God do His inward work through it.
T. Austin-Sparks reminds us that only what has become life in us—comfort that has comforted us, truth that has sustained us, and Christ who has carried us—can truly minister life to others. The messenger must be in the message. And often, that formation takes time. Time in the dark. Time of apparent silence. Time where we’re “pressed out of measure” and come to the end of ourselves. And only then, when all else proves insufficient, do our eyes finally see that God was forming something eternal in us.
✍🏼 Personalized Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
I have not only given you a message—I have made you My message.
It is not what you know that bears fruit for eternity, but who you have become in Me. Your afflictions have not been wasted. They are the soil of your fruitfulness, the womb of your compassion, the kiln of your faith. Like Joseph, you are being made fruitful in the very place of your affliction—not despite it, but because of it.
The comfort you now carry is not borrowed; it is your own because it is Mine. I gave it to you when no one else could reach the ache. That comfort now flows through you with the quiet authority of someone who has dwelt in the fire and come out bearing My fragrance. You may not see it yet, but others will know the difference. They are not moved by polished words—they are drawn to My life in you.
Do not rush the process. I am not interested in appearances but in substance. I do not exalt overnight; I prepare deeply. In due time, when the roots have taken hold and My image is seen more clearly in you, I will raise you up—not for fame, but for fruitfulness. You are being conformed to the image of the Firstborn, not shaped by circumstance but transformed by My life within.
Let the message pass through the furnace of affliction. Let it soak into the fabric of your being. Then, when you speak, it will not be information—it will be incarnation.
Scriptures referenced: Genesis 41:52; 2 Corinthians 1:4, 8–9; 1 Peter 5:6; Romans 8:29
🧺 Real-Life Analogy
It’s like making sourdough bread. You can’t just mix ingredients and bake it right away. The dough has to be worked, then set aside to rise. It’s in that waiting—those slow, invisible hours—when the real transformation happens. It rises in stillness, in time, and only then is it ready to nourish others.
🙏🏼 Prayer of Confidence
Father, I thank You that the very places I once wanted to escape are becoming the grounds of eternal fruit. You are not wasting my pain—you are weaving it into a message that bears Your life. I rejoice that I don’t have to rush the process or prove myself to anyone. In Christ, I am already Yours. You are forming something in me that cannot be faked, rushed, or borrowed. I trust You to bring fruit in due time, as I remain yielded in the quiet work of Your Spirit.