Thanking God for both Good and Bad

Hello, dear friends! Linda and I are so thankful for you, your continued friendship, and your prayers!

We all have our challenges, don’t we? We’ve been facing a unique challenge lately. It caused me to consider how a natural diamond becomes a treasured gem. Three key ingredients–heat, pressure, and time– combine to create priceless diamonds of incomparable beauty. If diamonds grew as easily as grass grows, would they be so costly to buy? No way!

Think about this for a moment. Heat…pressure… time. When challenges come, we feel as if the heat of burning coals touches our lives. The pressure of the situation can feel overwhelming. And more times than not, it takes a long time for the challenge to be resolved.

It’s interesting that when something good happens we feel blessed, yet when we endure long-term challenges in our health, finances, or relationships we become discouraged and heartbroken. We can feel like God has forgotten us, leaving us to face these hurdles alone.

But the reality is, we may sense God’s Presence even more intensely as He works in our lives. Two key things we certainly learn are that nothing grows our character and faith better than adversity and God doesn’t let us walk these tough stretches along. As a result, we can actually thank God for our challenges!

Heroes in the Bible offer us encouragement as we see how they faced challenges. For me, the “poster child” for adversity is Job, who encountered unbearable adversity yet did not curse God.

When enemy raiders killed his servants and stole his flocks and when all his children died in a building collapse, he wrote in Job 1:21: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” I also appreciate his wisdom in Job 2:10 when Satan struck him with head-to-toe boils and sores, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Because we live in a broken world, suffering assaults us all. But we know that God works ALL things, (not some, or a few, or many but ALL things) for our good. Paul reminds us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

When we encounter the storms of life, we can trust He will see us through these upheavals. And just as enormous stress perfects diamonds, God also uses the immense pressures of life, over time, to perfect us. To weather the storms of life we need to ask the right question. The wrong question to ask is, “Why me?” Instead, the right question to ask is, “What is God trying to accomplish in me as He uses this hardship?”

Are you facing a really challenging time? Do you need encouragement and prayer? Linda and I would love to pray for you, talk with you, and encourage you. Simply reach out to us at linda@yourrefreshedlife.com or reen.waterman@navitgators.org.