FERTILE SOIL OF SUFFERING

      I was talking to a friend the other day (on face book) about how sometimes life circumstances, pain, discouragement, and spiritual attack, takes us out of the game for awhile. God’s calling on our life can be thwarted if we begin to look at our difficult circumstances, instead of looking to the one who can redeem those circumstances. In Romans 8:28 it says, “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.” Often times on “Christian TV”, I hear people stating that God wants us all to be healthy, rich, and so on. Subsequently they state that because all we need to do is simply “claim” our inheritance—if we don’t see that financial prosperity it must be due to a lack of faith. While there is some truth and benefit to positive affirmation, it is a false belief that bad things don’t happen to good people (or believers). Bad things happen to good people all the time. Loved ones die, businesses struggle, people lose their jobs, relationships fail, cars brake down, etc, etc, etc. Hardship is a part of life. The difference as a “Christ follower” is that when those hardships happen, I have the assurance that I serve a sovereign God that loves me and promises to grow something beautiful in the garden of my heart (using the manure of life). I also know that no matter how hard things get, my loving heavenly Father has good things planned for me in the future. I look at some of the people whose testimonies/lives have had a profound impact on my life and one common trait is the fact that God had developed character within their lives while they went through tremendous adversity. Women like Corrie Ten Boom, who was a simple some unknown Dutch watchmaker’s daughter until she learned to trust God in the midst of a Nazi concentration camp. Joni Eareckson Tada, Elisabeth Elliott, Melody Green, etc. All people who learned to trust God deeply in the midst of tremendous adversity and were transformed by God’s faithfulness in the midst of hardship. 
A great quote By Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss American author, which I just read;

 “The most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”