Don’t allow pain to plant bitter seeds
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bvwv/Religion/6362/
You probably have heard the old saying, “ Into every life a little rain must fall. ” Another quote that gets my attention is, “ All sunshine makes a desert. ”
Yes, we all have problems. One poet said it this way, “ Never a morning made it till evening that some heart wasn’t broken. ”
The question is not will we have problems, but how do we deal with adversity ?
We can be certain that in every adversity, God works to help us. Trials draw us closer to God and help us grow. C. S. Lewis wrote, “ God speaks to us in our pleasure, but shouts to us in our pain. ”
Pain can be God’s megaphone in our lives. In Romans 8, we have God’s promise that he works in every situation for our good, even when it hurts.
Will we get bitter when we are hurting, or will we let God use the hurts to
• Bury him in the snow in Valley Forge, and you have George Washington;
• Raise him in abject poverty, and you have Abraham Lincoln;
• Strike him with polio, and he becomes Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only U. S. president elected to office four times;
• Have him or her born black into a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman or Marion Anderson;
• Call a slow learner retarded and write him off, and you have Albert Einstein; and
• Paint him as mediocre in chemistry, and you have Louis Pasture.
These people overcame many difficulties. They didn’t get bitter in spite of hardships. You can make the same choice. Not all disabilities are physical or visible. Every person who made it through difficult times is not a well-known celebrity. Every family has its own heroes for which there are no medals distinguished enough to reward them for all they did. Their example gives the family hope and encouragement.
In 2 Corinthians 1, the apostle Paul used a crisis in his life for two purposes. He learned to rely on God and not his own ability. I’m sure that was hard for Paul, because he was an extremely gifted person. Yet he used this crisis to learn how to trust God. He also learned to use his problems to help others. God never wastes a pain. He can take our sufferings and use them to minister to someone who is going through the same thing. How will you use the difficulties that come in your life ? As the apostle Paul reminds us as he closes Romans 8, we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ who loves us and gave himself for us. I’m pressing on. What about you ?
• • • Thad Moore is pastor of Bella Vista Community Church.