Life is difficult. Once you get that fact settled then the rest of life becomes easier to accept. This is one area where believers tend to go amiss in their journey. It goes without saying that my illness falls directly into this category. It does not really matter what results are given Monday. There could the answer that my body shows no evidence of disease. It is also possible that there may be the presence of an active illness remaining. You cannot completely rule out that the situation could take a dire turn. The truth will remain that life is difficult even with a good prognosis. The question will not be if there will be more crises in life but when will they happen. I don't mean this as doubt in any shape or form. It just is what it is.

Our usual tendency in trouble is to isolate ourselves from it or insulate our emotions against any trouble we face. Emotional experts call this the time of denial. This is when we push aside harsh reality even though we do not change it. We can even hide our feelings among religious behavior. My point is that we may not be really aiming for spiritual growth. Our heart or mind may not be open to divine truth as we move through trials. But we will quote a select few verses of scripture or act as if all is well in our world. Human beings tend to grasp at anything that will make their world stop spinning out of control. These words are not meant to be harsh. There are better ways to face our sufferings than just settling for denial.

Years ago there was a sermon or a book or something that captured my attention. I just do not remember the source. What I remember is the admonition "don't waste your sorrows!" It seems to me that the writer was saying that sorrows are common for all of us whether saved or lost. His desire was to believers not to miss out on what God does even in sorrowful circumstances. My guess is that being young limited me from really understanding all that was said. Today the truth of those words are much more meaningful. Much of my insight now comes not from learning but from experiencing difficulty with others or on my own.

It is more than a cliche that we can learn great truths about God when we remain open to His activity. Great people in scripture model that truth for us. We also just know God through problems in ways not possible when comfortable. You might think that the oldest book in the Bible would be Genesis. You may be surprised to learn that most academics view Job as the oldest book in scripture. If nothing else this tells us that man's struggle to process the bad things of our journey is as old as time itself. The ultimate answer for this man Job was not the restoring of his stuff. Perhaps the greatest answer is that Job knows God in ways he never did prior to his particular disasters.

Suffering helps purify our vision. We learn to see everything differently in the crisis. Hopefully our attention is taken off the peripheral issues and set on the eternal. One of the outcomes of this will be our value on those around us. But suffering can also remind us of our limits or our faults. Seems almost funny how we tend to bargain with God on the basis of our perceived goodness in tough times. God often will use those same times to graciously move us into a new awareness of our frailty. How odd that we who profess our belief in God would need to be reminded of our imperfections? What we learn in our troubles can change our life in ways we cannot imagine. Being open to God is the difference between being bitter and being better in our spiritual life. Which one do you want to be?

Bro. Trey