FAILURE AND THE FLESH
If not understood correctly, this severe time of testing wipes out a believer You have chosen for blessing. Through Your intended bewilderment, the “set-backs” and failures, the believer can grow bitter and cynical, becoming skeptical regarding Your promises and Your involvement in fulfilling them, and withdraw into a defeated attitude, confessing they must have heard wrong and been wrong about You in the first place. The believer never completely loses the beliefs You originally implanted, but now they are layered over with negative thoughts and feelings like an onion causing a shift back into relying on fleshly resources. They begin to mumble and complain about life and start expressing ungrateful, unthankful attitudes. Sounds a lot like the Children of Israel in the Wilderness! The original belief regarding financial blessing may manifest itself occasionally but usually shows up in a twisted form of wishful thinking, comprised of “I hope I get lucky” or leads to superstitions and get-rich-quick schemes, leading to various forms of gambling. Guilt rises out of sinful solutions and failure plus failure grows into a fear of perpetual failure; all of which are manifestations of the flesh, not the Spirit.
Now the once confident, hopeful believer, who was motivated to live by faith in Your promises, doubts Your original revelation and enlightenment, questions the once clear-cut Scriptural confirmations of Phase One and becomes unstable in all his ways. (This sure emphasizes the importance of journaling!)