The Value of Troubles
4/28/2021
The other day I heard a minister preaching on how the Jewish people grew from a family to a nation. What stood out to me was the fact that they faced strife, hardship, and the Egyptians making their life miserable. Then I received the article, “The Value of Strife” which goes right along with it (link at bottom of article). I put these two incidents with the fact the if you want to get your muscles stronger, you have to work them more than you have been.
We, as American Christians, have had life so easy that we have a tendency to become weak in our faith. We want to forget Romans 5:3-5, where it states that we are to glory in tribulations and one reason that we have tribulations is so that we can grow in the Lord. We need to remember that if we don’t use our faith against the wiles of the devil then we will slowly lose it.
Some of us have faced a lifetime of tribulations, trials, tests and any other words you want to use to describe the hardships that try to come between us and God. Out of this group some have fallen, however some have become truly great men and women in God.
Ones that we can look up to, ones that we look at their life and wish we had that type of testimony. Never thinking about all they went through to get their testimony. So, we ask God for a testimony like theirs and fall flat on our knees asking God to remove it. We have to have trouble, strife, tests, trials and tribulations for our faith to grow.
It was during the time shortly after Jesus died on the cross that the Christians spread the word about God to basically all the then known world. They became strong Christians because of the troubles they faced.
How about you? Are you the type that prays for a way out of your troubles or the type that prays for a way through them, so that you may grow? Are you the type that prays for someone’s salvation and then as soon as they start having hard times, pray that God will remove the “hard time” so that life becomes easy for them?
C.I. Wilson
Romans 5:3–5 (KJV) And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; Ans patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abrouad in our hearts by the Holy ghost which is given unto us.