I was reading my devotion last night and fell in love with the passage below. We don't always understand why we go through difficult times and trials in life, some temporary and some that are present throughout a lifetime. God has a purpose for it. I've seen His work in my life through my life-long trial of chronic pain (my condition is degenerative). He is always there and He loves us so very, very much, and I know and see the purpose in this trial. I would not be as strong in my faith if trials were not present in my life. Oliver Wendell Holmes understood that times of tribulation serve a purpose in growing us in Christ. He wrote, "If I had a formula for ridding mankind of trouble, I think I would not reveal it, for in doing so, I would do him a disservice."
That trouble, trials, tribulation, difficulty and sorrow have enriched lives is amply borne out even in the hymns we so frequently sing. The blind Fanny Crosby, some of whose hymns bless almost every church service we attend; Horatio Spafford, who, after the horror of the devastating Chicago fire, followed by the loss of four daughters in an Atlantic shipwreck, was somehow enabled to wrote "It is Well With My Soul." George Matheson, likewise, threatened by certain blindness and forsaken by a beloved fiancee, gave to us the beautiful "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.
From a devotion entitled "Why All the Trouble?" by Jeanette Lockerbie
No comments:
Post a Comment