"What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly."
- A.W. Tozer
I have found this so often to be true. There are burdens and storms in this life, and they come to the Christian and non-believer alike, as to the strong and the weak, the kind and the cruel. We were not promised a life without strife and struggle, without illness and heartbreak.....if our Lord wept, and our Lord suffered, how can we expect to be exempted?
But...how we handle the tempests and burdens makes all the difference. If we shoulder them with bitterness, if we harbor anger...then our soul becomes poisoned. If we make others to suffer for the state we are in....as in attacking our spouse, our friends, our loved ones or the stranger on the street with harsh words dripping with venom, then the misery only spreads and guilt adds to what we are already carrying.
Yet.....yet there is another option. To walk into the storm knowing God has gone before you, trusting and praising in Him. To sit with the illness and offer words of worship to the Lord, and encouragement to others. To attempt to sweeten the lives of those around you even as your soul feels tossed in the waves. To pray that God be glorified in this time, and that He might strengthen you to bear it all the better and to be a witness for Him.
When we do that, my friends...everything changes. Our lives, even with and especially because of our trials, show the light of God and His grace within us. Our peace, and even such joy as can be found in trying times, confuses those who know not God and they are drawn to find out the source of your contentment and trust. When we lay our suffering at the feet of Christ as a gift, He takes that meager offering...so like the five loaves and two little fish, and He magnifies it into something beyond what we could have imagined.
And is there any better use of our trials than to allow God to work through them? What should our temporary sufferings mean if it draws another towards the open arms of the Savior?
Will you not give to God what you are struggling with? Will you not trust and praise in Him even at this time, when the storm is dark and the light seems far off? For if you do, He will work through you and hold you safely in the tempest.
Be blessed my friends, and may you be a blessing to someone else,
-Beth Haynes Butler
- A.W. Tozer
I have found this so often to be true. There are burdens and storms in this life, and they come to the Christian and non-believer alike, as to the strong and the weak, the kind and the cruel. We were not promised a life without strife and struggle, without illness and heartbreak.....if our Lord wept, and our Lord suffered, how can we expect to be exempted?
But...how we handle the tempests and burdens makes all the difference. If we shoulder them with bitterness, if we harbor anger...then our soul becomes poisoned. If we make others to suffer for the state we are in....as in attacking our spouse, our friends, our loved ones or the stranger on the street with harsh words dripping with venom, then the misery only spreads and guilt adds to what we are already carrying.
Yet.....yet there is another option. To walk into the storm knowing God has gone before you, trusting and praising in Him. To sit with the illness and offer words of worship to the Lord, and encouragement to others. To attempt to sweeten the lives of those around you even as your soul feels tossed in the waves. To pray that God be glorified in this time, and that He might strengthen you to bear it all the better and to be a witness for Him.
When we do that, my friends...everything changes. Our lives, even with and especially because of our trials, show the light of God and His grace within us. Our peace, and even such joy as can be found in trying times, confuses those who know not God and they are drawn to find out the source of your contentment and trust. When we lay our suffering at the feet of Christ as a gift, He takes that meager offering...so like the five loaves and two little fish, and He magnifies it into something beyond what we could have imagined.
And is there any better use of our trials than to allow God to work through them? What should our temporary sufferings mean if it draws another towards the open arms of the Savior?
Will you not give to God what you are struggling with? Will you not trust and praise in Him even at this time, when the storm is dark and the light seems far off? For if you do, He will work through you and hold you safely in the tempest.
Be blessed my friends, and may you be a blessing to someone else,
-Beth Haynes Butler
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